Domino Motion
By: sorrel_rowan
CATEGORY: Drama, Romance
SEASON/SPOILERS: Season 10, Spoilers through to “Memento Mori”
WARNINGS: None
AUTHOR’S WEBSITE:
http://www.fanfiction.net/~sorrelrowan
CHAPTER 1: One Fifth Missing
They were a peaceful people, with a stable agrarian society. Daniel was walking through the ruins, taking in the Ancient landmarks and trying to find references to Morgan, Merlin or anything that could help them against the Ori.
Vala had been trailing about ten feet behind, P90 in hand. When Daniel stopped at another pillar, she sighed. Daniel turned around. "What?"
Letting go of the gun, Vala waved her hands at the pillar. "You're going to be reading this for some time yet, aren't you?" Daniel almost smiled at the long-suffering tone he managed to get out of her before remembering she irritated him. The two stopped, Vala with her hands on her hips and Daniel with a slightly bemused expression. "Well, I'm going to go and play with the village children," Vala said with a slight flounce. "What?" She asked when Daniel continued to look at her. "They were talking about caves they liked to explore, we might find some- ... Oh okay, I'm bored."
Daniel looked at her again. "And why couldn't you just tell me that?"
"Because then you'd feel bad and rush. Or actually, no, you wouldn't, and it wouldn't have made a difference anyway."
There was another pause as she looked at him, and Daniel was amused by the fact that that she seemed to be begging him to let her run and play. Eventually he nodded, and Vala grinned and ran back to the village, pigtails bouncing as she went.
Daniel sighed and turned back to the pillar.
Later, as he entered the village inn they'd been given by the governor as accommodation, he sat at a tavern table with Mitchell, Sam and Teal'c. They looked at him, then each other, then the door.
Mitchell and Sam looked at each other as if playing rock-scissor-paper over who got to ask something as Teal'c linked his hands and found the window interesting.
"Daniel," Sam asked in the end. "Where's Vala?"
Daniel looked at the blank faces and his hand went to his radio.
"Vala, this is Daniel, come in." He waited a few seconds for her reply, but none came.
"Vala, this is Daniel. Please come in," he repeated with a little more insistence.
Daniel looked at Mitchell, who sighed and stood. As they stood, leaving behind warm food and shelter for the cold near dark. Mitchell muttered, "God help her if she lost her radio rolling in mud with toddlers."
"Indeed," Teal'c added.
Six hours later, there was still no sign of Vala. They'd checked her room, scoured the village and the surrounding area with the help of the locals. Daniel had even attempted to reopen whatever strange connection existed between them to somehow sense her location with no luck.
All he could tell was she wasn't dead, which wasn't that much help, despite providing reassurance.
Walking into the village square after another sweep, Daniel had a drink of water and then started to walk out of the village again.
"Daniel!" Mitchell shouted behind him.
Sam jogged to level with him. "It's getting dark. We can't keep looking tonight." She looked out into the dark woods. "Vala's capable and resourceful, for all her kidding. You know that as well as me."
"Colonel Carter is correct," Teal'c weighed in. "Searching in such conditions only serves to use energy better saved for the morning."
"Get some rest," Mitchell added. "And some hot food. We'll bring together what we know and see if we can shed some light on what's going on."
Daniel sighed and nodded, forcing himself to be rational. Going back to the inn, they sat around the same table as earlier as the barmaid brought over pots of stew and cups of water for them.
"So what do we know?" Sam started after five minutes or so of silent eating.
"This morning, you wanted to explore some Ancient ruins about two clicks south of the village," Mitchell said.
"Vala went with you because ..." Sam paused. They all looked at each other.
"I believe simply because she wished to," Teal'c continued after a moment.
Daniel smiled faintly. "We got to the ruins, and I started translating pillars while Vala explored the area. About mid-afternoon, we ran into a group of kids about ten or so, with a teenager watching them. We had lunch with them." He paused to take a drink before continuing. "About three hours after that, Vala lost patience with watching me translate."
Sam ducked her head, and then looked up with surprise. "Vala lasted five or six hours while you read ruins? That’s impressive."
“Indeed,” Teal’c added. “I know of few capable of such endurance.”
Daniel grinned. "And she didn't even start fidgeting until she realised she could go play with the other kids." Remembering why they were talking about it, Daniel grew serious. "She asked if I'd be alright on my own and went to talk to the kids. I assumed she'd be back here when I got here."
Mitchell chipped in, "I talked to Jared. They saw you at lunchtime, and didn't see either of you again until we asked them about Vala."
"Logically," Teal'c continued. "Whatever occurred must have happened between the ruins and the village."
Later, having dissected the day into bits and coming up with nothing, Daniel looked out of his window into the darkness and then reluctantly went to sleep.
Daniel didn't know what time it was when he grabbed his radio from the floor, not knowing if he were imagining Vala’s voice coming through in pieces.
“Vala? Vala?!” He shouted into the radio. “Where are you?”
“I don’t …. Path … Woods…” Her voice was faint and signal breaking up. “I think I’m near … caves…”
Daniel froze, the clicked the radio. “Vala, I’m on my way, hold on.”
The radio crackled again. “Thanks … Soon … They’re here… Requesting… silence…over…”
Daniel dressed hurriedly, pulling on his bullet-proof vest, shoes and grabbing his P90 and ammo. Stumbling into the hall and down the stairs, he found Mitchell, Sam and Teal’c already geared up and talking to a young boy.
“I can help!” The teen, Jared, was shouting.
“You’ve told us enough,” Mitchell said quickly.
“Vala wouldn’t want you in danger,” Daniel interjected. “And we’re grateful for you telling us about the caves.” He put a hand on Jared’s arm. “We have to hurry.”
Running from the village and following the directions Jared had given, Daniel and the others slowed when they heard gunfire up ahead.
“That sounds like-” Sam said to Mitchell.
“P90,” Mitchell finished.
“And staff weapons,” Teal’c added.
Ducking into the cover, SG-1 made their way forward into the fire fight.
“Vala!” Daniel shouted into his radio as Teal’c fired on the jaffa in front. “Why are we being attacked by jaffa?”
“
“We copy that and are coming to you,” Sam said over the radio from about twenty feet away.
Ten adrenaline-fuelled minutes later, SG-1 broke through the ranks of the jaffa and shot the last of them. Daniel ran into the cave mouth where Vala had taken refuge and found her unconscious beneath a wall.
He pulled her up into sitting position, leaning her head against his shoulder. For a brief second, the image of the dark cave was overlaid by an image of Vala leaning against him after being burned to death and brought back by the Ori.
Back in the cave, Vala’s eyes flickered open. “One of them got in a lucky zat while I was reaching for his staff weapon,” she muttered. “Does that make you think I’m pathetic?”
“Well, yes.” Daniel bit back a grin. She looked up at him, eyes telling him to explain that at his own risk. “You were only out-numbered twenty to one and pinned down. I’ve gotten used to thinking you’re super-powered.”
"Pinned down is just how you like me," Vala said, with a flash of her usual self before leaning against him. “Can I rest now?”
Vala’s voice blended into Sam’s much harsher, more concerned voice. “Can you please get some rest, Daniel?”
Blinking, Daniel looked around and found himself not in a dark cave with Vala safe and leaning against him but at his desk in his office, being woken by Sam and a tray of hot food. He reached for the tray blindly – or at least without his glasses, which in Daniel’s case was virtually the same thing – to find it pulled just out of reach. With a grumble, he reached again and only realised a moment later that Sam had successfully lured him into sitting position and placed a coffee cup in front of him. She picked up the book he’d fallen asleep on and sighed.
“We’ll find her, Daniel,” Sam said quietly. Daniel started to speak but Sam held up a hand. “It’s been five months. You can stop pretending you didn’t care as much as you did or that it hasn’t affected you as much as it has.”
“Do,” Daniel said, equally quietly. “I do care about her, because she’s still alive. I can’t tell much from that bond we had, but I can tell that.”
“She’ll come back, Daniel,” Sam said again. “But you need to take care of yourself to be here when she does.” She turned to go out the door, then turned back and tossed him a file she’d left on a work surface near the door. “Briefing in an hour, looks like Daniel-Disneyland.”
Daniel smiled faintly and grumbled about her spending too much time with Mitchell.
After showering, Daniel thought back to the dream Sam had woken him from. He was having those more and more lately, as if his guilt was only growing with the greater length of time in which he failed to find her. They always started accurately, but in the end he’d save her. Or she’d be okay. Or on bad days, she’d die in his arms. The reality was in some ways more painful to bear. There had been no late-night radio contact. Daniel had slept until it was light and continued to look for her the next morning. A week later, Landry had called off the search on the planet, saying that with the Ori invasion SG-1 were needed on the front line. He’d made it clear they weren’t giving up on Vala, but were simply needed elsewhere. When she’d vanished to the Ori galaxy, Daniel hadn’t given up, and if he were honest, she’d meant a lot less to him then. Seeing her fight the Ori, various other enemies and her own nature, witnessing her intelligence and resourcefulness… Seeing her nature: infuriating and irrepressible even after all she’d been through, astonishingly perceptive… Daniel admitted she’d come to mean more to him than he’d thought she could.
As for the whole ‘not-a-date’ debacle, Daniel had no idea whether Vala was a friend or more, but he would be damned if he would be denied the chance to find out.
Sam was right. He didn’t do anyone any good or get Vala any closer to home sleeping in his office night after night. He dried himself off, got dressed and went to the briefing.
Author’s Note: Been watching seasons 8, 9 and 10. Have to say that 8 worried me a little, but 9 and 10 are brilliant and it’s got to be said, the chemistry! They steal every scene they’re in together. Hence Daniel and Vala were in my head. This chapter is dedicated to the very talented video editor who put together a D/V video to The Fray’s “Over My Head.” It’s kinda brilliant. Go to youtube and search it. Please.
Oh and two new bands who need your support … La Rocca (LA/Dublin) and Amplifico (Edinburgh).
CHAPTER 2: The Strangest Places on the Way Home
Author’s Note: I was cooped up with flu when this little plot bunny ran around my head, and I’m not one to deny my muse. Especially when she or he has been on the outs with me for quite some time now as far as fanfiction goes. And I was watching many stargate episodes, and just couldn’t get Daniel and Vala out of my head, and so felt compelled to write something about them. I should mention that the title of this fic is inspired by the Imogen Heap song, ‘Glittering Cloud.’
Thanks to the wonderful Briar Elwood, fellow Daniel/Vala shipper and marvellous beta.
* * * *
Briefing Room:
“So where are we going?” Daniel said, not even pretending to have read the prep report.
“It’s undercover,” Mitchell started. “We’ll need to break out the leather again, I’m afraid.”
Daniel sighed with a small smile, pushing aside the reminder of Vala and forcing himself to think about work. “So it’s an auction.”
It was a little more complicated than that, Daniel thought as they walked in the door. It was more of a private warehouse of contraband goods for sale on the intergalactic equivalent of the black market. The warehouse itself was a ship, constantly ready to be moved should the need arise or it be discovered by the Goa’uld, Ori or any other unfriendly and powerful force that they may offend.
Daniel had to hold back a grin, hearing Mitchell playing up to the cowboy character he had assumed – for absolutely no reason.
“You kid,” Daniel muttered in an accusatory tone after he’d introduced himself as ‘Billy, meanest rancher and fencer you’ll ever meet.’
“What?” Mitchell asked all innocence.
“The leather just not enough for you?” Daniel asked. The auctioneer won’t even understand the pun on ‘fencer,’ he thought, amused.
He was saved from answering beyond an amused grin and tip of his hat by Sam and Teal’c’s return.
Taking his life into his hands, Mitchell slapped an arm around Sam’s shoulders and introduced her as ‘ma wench.’
Sam’s smile was rather forced.
Daniel turned a laugh into a cough at the auctioneer’s gaze as he realised he was actually having fun. We might be killed at any minute, but that’s hardly new and different.
“An’ wha’s this, ma darlin’?” Mitchell asked Sam in his horrific ‘cowboy’ accent.
“Just a trinket, dear,” Sam answered, trying to force her expression to vapid and failing as she held the battered piece of technology. Daniel had no idea what it was, but saw Sam attempting to contain her usual I’ve-stumbled-onto-a-new-toy-and-I’m-glowing look.
He turned and deposited it in Teal’c’s possession. “You hold it for the moment.” He looked to the auctioneer. “My bodyguard.” “I’ll pay for it later,” Mitchell replied, disinterested.
Sam patted his arm with a fake smile, “Oh, yes, darling. You really will.”
“Why have I never heard of you?” The auctioneer asked, puzzled.
“My employer chooses to keep a low profile,” Daniel intervened.
“And which member of the entourage are you?” He demanded, squinting at him.
“
The auctioneer stammered his apologies as the others traded glances. “Still, you must understand my position. If a private operation like this were to be discovered by the wrong people…”
“Maybe you know one of our past associates,” Daniel added. “Vala Mal Doran?”
Mitchell looked at him, smug smile falling. The others wore similar expressions. The tension was not broken but increased by the raucous laughter of the auctioneer. He looked around Mitchell, Daniel and Teal’c.
“So tell me,” He asked companionably. “Which one of you did she leave penniless and destitute?”
Daniel asked suddenly, “You’ve met her?”
“Only by reputation,” he admitted. “But you’re the second person to ask about her-” He paused at Mitchell’s glare. “Mention her at least in the past few days.”
“In connection with?” Mitchell asked, dropping the drawl.
“What happened to your voice?” The auctioneer asked, under the delusion the conversation was still casual.
“An affection,” Mitchell remarked. “I can get over it.”
“The point?” Daniel asked. “Vala Mal Doran?”
He held up his hands in contrition. “If you’re after her for revenge, I know she has a lot of people chasing her but I really don’t think you want to pursue this…”
Teal’c lifted the little man up and pinned him against the wall. “Explain.”
“The Lucian Alliance is looking for her,” He gasped. “And the Ori.”
“That much we knew,” Sam added. “I assume there’s more?”
He nodded, lips turning blue and legs kicking ineffectually. Mitchell nodded to Teal’c, who sat him down on the ground with a thump. Mitchell put a hand under his chin and jerked his eyes up to meet his. “I’m nice. I didn’t let him choke you. How do you say ‘thank you’?”
He stuttered ‘thank you.’
“Wrong answer,” Mitchell snapped and Teal’c moved as if to lift him again.
Daniel knelt next to the quaking man, offering him a drink of water. “You’re an auctioneer, right?” He nodded, accepting the drink. “If they came to you, you either have information or an item they’re interested in. We’d be interested in either or both of the above.”
“And who asked you about her last,” Sam interjected.
He went pale and shook his head. “I, I … I can’t. They’d kill me.”
“Teal’c-” Daniel said warningly. Teal’c began to move towards the cowering man again, eyes expressionless.
“The Ori!” He practically screeched. “It was the Ori leader!”
Apparently the Ori would kill him, but the little man was smart enough to weigh that against the fact that if he didn’t answer Teal’c both could and would.
“And what was she looking for?” Daniel asked pleasantly.
He bowed his head in defeat. “She was interested in viewing an item.”
“Which item?” Daniel’s voice was dreadfully patient.
The little man started breathing quickly and looking to the ceiling.
“And…” Mitchell broke in, “I’m out of patience. You?”
Sam raised her eyebrows and nodded.
“Me too,” Daniel said.
Teal’c added, “As am I.”
He screeched for all he was worth as Teal’c reached for him then stopped as he was jerked roughly to his feet, not choked to death. Mitchell clapped a hand on his shoulder as he stood, shocked.
“Don’t worry. We’re not going to kill you,” He quipped cheerfully, reverting back to the cowboy accent again.
“Not yet anyway,” Daniel added pleasantly. He looked at Teal’c, who still had a hand firmly on the terrified man’s shoulder. He looked the man in the eye, dropping all pretences of nicety. “Item. Now.”
* * * *
“Oh, my God,” Sam almost breathed, running up to the platform. Daniel, Teal’c and Mitchell exchanged glances.
“What is it, Sam?” Mitchell asked, curious.
“If it’s what-” Sam broke off with a look at Daniel. “I really don’t want to say until I’m sure.”
Daniel walked up to the platform, eyeing the object curiously. It was about six feet in diameter and appeared almost translucent, like a frozen-
Daniel halted the thought and looked at Sam. “It’s not a-”
“No, not a coffin,” she finished with a smile. “Talk about finding when you stop looking,” she quipped to him and then prayed she was right. The sudden hope in his eyes was almost painful.
“You think it’s-” He could barely get the words out. She nodded. He swallowed and smiled shakily. “I’ll bet you a month’s pay Mitchell cracks the first Snow White joke.”
“We’ll see in a minute.” Sam ran her hands over the top panel, the contact revealing a set of controls. She took a deep breath and nodded to him. Pressing a button, the ice effect inside the chamber faded and Daniel looked onto the frozen face of Vala Mal Doran.
* * * *
Sam dropped the meter she’d been holding and ran for the little man but Teal’c got there first, pinning him against the wall by the throat.
“I didn’t know!” He squeaked repetitively. “I swear!”
“Explains why the Ori were so interested,” Mitchell said aside to Sam, who nodded and looked at the auctioneer. “I’m betting Adria knew exactly what this was.”
“Where did you get this and how long ago?” Her voice promised deadly consequences if he didn’t answer.
He looked between them. “About four months ago, from a contact
within the Lucian
As he tailed off, Mitchell sent a glance Daniel’s way to check up on him. He was seated by the chamber, fingertips tracing the vein-like wires across the panel. As Mitchell watched Daniel’s hand settled over Vala’s, lying prone inside the glass. Mitchell looked away, feeling as though he were intruding on some private moment between the two.
“What was the point of it?” Mitchell asked very slowly. “What was the Lucian Alliance going to do with her?”
The auctioneer blinked on ‘her,’ as if realising that they weren’t standard space pirates but realising he was too deep in to backtrack now. “My contact said they planned to trade her to the Ori,” He reported, his voice sounding small and broken. “But a black market sale inside the Lucian Alliance took place first and the crate ended up here. I honestly had no idea it was actually her.”
“Sam!” Daniel’s voice was urgent and distressed. Sam and the others were beside him at the stasis chamber in seconds. Daniel was leaning down, his eyes on level with Vala’s temple. “Is that what I-?”
She nodded and lunged for her scanner. “Memory device.”
Scanning the area, Daniel thought he saw her pale slightly. “It’s active,” she said in a low voice. “And there’s a signal to suggest it could be connected to a viewer at any time.”
“Hold on, I remember reading about this,” Mitchell put it in. “Are you saying she’s awake in there?”
“Not awake, no,” Sam explained, pressing a few controls on the chamber. “She’s essentially in a deep sleep but her dreams will be memories.”
“They were searching her subconscious, as did Athena?” Teal’c asked.
Sam nodded. “That’s what it seems to be.”
Daniel’s eyes had gone wide. “But they’re…”
“It’s torture,” Mitchell finished. “Slow, painful, maddening torture.”
“By making her relive everything in her past as if she really were there,” Sam agreed.
“Stand up slowly and carefully,” the auctioneer’s voice rang out across the room. In their comprehension of Vala’s ordeal they’d forgotten him.
All four turned around slowly, setting down their weapons when they saw he was armed and pointing the gun directly at them. They couldn’t get their weapons up and firing before he shot his already positioned pistol.
Daniel saw Sam deliberately sitting her gun near the edge of the stasis chamber and wondered what she had in mind. Mitchell also spotted the motion and stepped down from the platform, hoping to draw the auctioneer’s attention.
“Let me guess,” He called out flamboyantly. “Hallowed are-”
In answer, the auctioneer fired off a round at Mitchell’s feet. “Unbelievers are not permitted to use those words,” he practically snarled.
Mitchell looked back at the others. “Guess that answers that question, then.”
“The Orici said you would come, Tauri,” he added, face exuberant. “She hoped I would retrieve the location of Merlin’s weapon from the mother before you arrived. Now I have completed both my tasks by retrieving you.”
“So that accent really was for nothing,” Sam remarked to Mitchell, who nodded and conceded the point.
“Do you all have to call her that?” Daniel asked. He had no idea why Sam seemed to want to buy time, but he played along. “Seriously, she has a name.” Either his revelation had stricken the man dumb or something else. However, given that turning to look would get him shot, Daniel stayed focussed ahead.
Until a shot fired and a growing circle of red appeared on the auctioneer’s chest.
Daniel didn’t wait to see him fall, turning and seeing Vala standing in the chamber, holding the gun pointed straight ahead.
He tried to meet her eyes but couldn’t because she was looking around the room wildly. She saw the gun in her hand and dropped it with a look of fear and distaste. In her haste to move away from the chamber she stumbled over its edge. Daniel almost fell in hurrying to help her stand. She flinched at the human contact.
“Is this real?” Her voice was tiny and her eyes still flitting between them.
Daniel nodded and was amazed that he could be so very calm and so very tense at once. He laughed softly. “You know how well our plans turn out. Does this fit?”
She nodded and reached out a hand to touch his face before nodding again. “I can go home?”
Daniel nodded, seemingly incapable of more complex communication at the time.
Sam uncorked a canteen of water and helped Vala drink it, her hands still shaking. Vala took a step but stumbled, her legs unused to moving. Daniel slung one of her arms around his shoulders and Mitchell did the same on her other side. Teal’c picked up Mitchell and Daniel’s packs as they moved to help.
Vala leaned her head towards Daniel, resting at the nape of his neck and murmuring, “I like your planet’s limited gene pool. Interesting and useful.”
* * * *
Mitchell, Teal’c, Sam and Landry waited outside the infirmary doors. Daniel and Dr. Lam exited, Daniel sitting with a sigh.
“Well, physically she’s fine,” Lam reassured the room.
Sam watched her and replied, “But what else?”
“Emotionally she’s a wreck.” Lam said with her characteristic brutality. Daniel looked up and nodded. “She’s having trouble believing she’s really awake and not still dreaming. It seems like shock and we all know she’s tough, so I do expect it’s temporary. But she’s going to need time and possibly therapy.”
Landry looked around at the other members of SG-1. “Beyond Vala is there anything I should know about the mission?”
Mitchell cleared his throat. “We recovered a medium sized ship we can use for parts or carrying cargo with a sizeable number of interesting artefacts that may prove useful, sir.”
Sam nodded in agreement. “I’d recommend sending it straight on to Area 51 entirely and letting their science team pick it apart.”
Landry nodded and dismissed them. Unsurprisingly, Lam was the first to leave, heading back to the infirmary. Landry left in the direction of his office and the briefing room, presumably to get on with other work. As Daniel stood to head back into the infirmary, Sam caught his arm. Daniel looked at the other three members of the team.
“You need anything, even a break…” Sam said softly, “Just tell us.”
“Landry’s agreed not to send us on missions unless it’s either fate of the galaxy or Vala’s stable,” Mitchell added.
“You are not alone in this.” Teal’c’s tone was subdued. Daniel nodded and murmured his thanks before heading back into the infirmary. He sat in a chair next to Vala’s bed before taking her hand. Right now she was asleep but he’d be there when she woke up, he was sure of it.
Author’s Note: Yes, yes, I know. I couldn’t keep her out of it for long. I’m weak, alright? Oh and for the Atlantis fans out there, I’m writing chapter two at the moment. Also, please please join the ‘Save Elizabeth Weir’ campaign! YOUR PLANET NEEDS YOU :D
CHAPTER 3: There Is A Darkness Deep Within You
Author’s Note: This chapter has some song lyrics scattered through – not enough to be called a song fic, but enough to merit a separate disclaimer. Lyrics are from the songs ‘Running’ by Evermore and The Cary Brothers, ‘Ride.’ Chapter title lyrics are from Snow Patrol.
Thanks again to Briar for the beta.
* * * *
Daniel had assumed everything would be okay when they got her home. That the shocked and battered look on her face as she had dropped the gun was strictly temporary. He knew intellectually that it had only been five days since she had woken up in the SGC infirmary, but it felt like longer.
Knowing his friend was alive and in the complex but that she was consciously avoiding him for reasons unknown was painful.
Luckily, he knew it wasn’t particularly personal. Sam, Teal’c, Mitchell, Landry and even Doctor Lam had received the same treatment. Vala had retreated within her room and refused everything Lam or anyone else had come up with, be it a therapist, sedatives, basketball or a walk on the surface. Sam had even offered to take her shopping, saying that she had five months of pay (including interest), so why not?
In a very selfish way, though, Daniel privately and painfully admitted that he had expected her to treat him differently. For a brief second, a memory played in his mind.
“It’s time to come
home,” He pleaded, realising he sounded far surer of himself than his racing
heart suggested. She ducked her head and let out a small gasp, trying to shake
away another memory. Her grip on the gun didn’t falter and nor did the arm
aiming it at his chest. She lifted her head and her eyes snapped open, locked
onto his.
“Daniel.”
Her voice had made his
name into both a question and an affirmation. She couldn’t bring herself to
ask, simply turning the gun away from him and gesturing for him to take it. Her
eyes were open and distressed. He moved towards her and took the gun, pulling
her into his arms. She had forgotten everything else but remembered him.
Daniel left his office at eleven and headed back to his quarters. Reaching the crossroads between his and Vala’s quarters, he looked over at her door with a sigh. A quiet enquiry to the airman placed in case Vala needed anything confirmed she wasn’t in. A little worried, Daniel decided to put his journal in his room and check a few places he figured she might be.
Turning after closing the door, a shocked voice in his mind registered that finding Vala wouldn’t be necessary. She was in his bed.
Remembering with a cringe what had happened the last time Vala had snuck into his room, Daniel looked at her carefully. This was a very different Vala. Curled up into the furthest corner of the bed in as tiny a ball as her body could make, it was as though she had hoped he wouldn’t notice her. From the leg and arm that had fallen over the edge of the bed, she was wearing more this time as well. Specifically, a set of black tracksuit bottoms, green socks and a red vest top. Quickly turning off his main light and putting on a less harsh lamp, he gently pulled the covers up over her and put her leg and arm under them.
Now what am I supposed to do? He thought, perplexed.
* * * *
“I know how it feels,
All the pain is so real,
You sink and you drown,
'Till your feet hit the ground
Running.”
- Evermore, ‘Running’
Lying on a rug next to the bed with a pillow and a light blanket, Daniel felt something land over his face. He pushed the other pillow off, sleepily looking for its source. He saw Vala struggling against the quilt on his bed, only entangling herself more by her twisting and turning.
Vala jerked awake, fighting a hold she couldn’t break and breathing hard. Her eyes snapped open to meet very familiar and concerned eyes intently focussed on her own.
“You were dreaming,” Daniel said softly. “You were going to hurt yourself.”
Vala nodded and noticed for the first time that the hands grasping her arms weren’t those of her villagers, holding her down to be beaten, but Daniel’s. Vala sat up and took the offered glass of water as Daniel sat on the bed next to her. Vala looked at him in faint amusement.
“What?”
“I’ve just never seen you like this,” Vala answered, feeling shy for the first time since she’d been a teenager. Daniel’s hair was mussed, he wasn’t wearing his glasses and was had on a pair of grey tracksuit bottoms and a white sleeveless t-shirt.
Daniel looked at her, raising his eyebrows and running a hand through his hair. “I can’t exactly say the same, you know,” he replied wryly.
She nodded, smiling and ducking her head. “What time is it?”
He reached over to lift his watch from the bedside table. “Coming up on three.”
Vala winced and looked away with a muttered apology. Daniel didn’t hesitate, putting his fingers beneath her chin and turning her eyes to his. “Don’t be.” She swallowed hard, but didn’t look away. “Most of what I’ve been doing lately involved worrying about you, anyway.”
Vala blinked as if not believing him then yawned, surprising a laugh from both of them and easing the tension in the air. He put a hand on her arm as he slid back to the floor. “Let’s get back to sleep.”
Vala took a deep breath, knowing she was about to cross a line. “Don’t be silly,” her voice said without her permission. She smiled. “There’s more than enough room for you not to wake up with a stiff neck.”
Daniel looked at her, glad at least to see a spark of her old self. Moving before he could second guess himself, Daniel climbed into the opposite side of the bed. He saw the muscles in her neck and shoulders relax as he settled in. Daniel lay staring at the ceiling until he heard Vala’s breaths become even and deep, both finally giving in to sleep.
* * * *
The next morning, Daniel awoke slowly and wondered at the bundle encased in his arms. Then memories of the previous night returned and he smiled softly, mentally debating whether he should attempt to move without waking Vala. Daniel attempted to think logically, reminded painfully that that was often difficult when he was alone with her. Looking at the time over her shoulder and remembering that he largely managed his own hours but for briefings and such, he thought he deserved a long lie. And so he closed his eyes, interlocking his fingers with Vala’s.
* * * *
“Too many words, too
many lies,
I can't quite see the truth,
When I look into your eyes,
I feel I could,
And I know I should,
Step away, turn around.
Let my feet hit the ground.”
- Evermore, ‘Running’
Turning slowly, Vala’s eyes widened to find Daniel smiling softly and with his arms wrapped around her. Heart speeding up rapidly, Vala slipped from the bed with the skills of the thief she had been and padded towards the door. As she put her left arm into her dressing gown and her hand on the door, a quiet voice stopped her.
“So now I won’t see you for days on end again,” Daniel remarked sleepily, tone numb.
Vala’s head fell, teeth clenching as she fought the unreasoning panic that rose in her throat. She hadn’t realised he was awake.
Daniel stood and walked to the end of the bed, trying not to crowd her. She turned to leave again.
“Let me ask you one thing,” Daniel blurted out with no idea if he were saying the right thing or not. “Why did you come here last night?”
Vala looked at him and swallowed. She met his eyes and seemed to struggle to hold his gaze. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped and walked out. Daniel sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. She can’t explain why,Daniel thought hopefully, but at least she did.
* * * *
Daniel needed to stop thinking for a little while. Naturally, this led him to the basketball court and Mitchell. Where Jack and Teal’c seemed to treat him as the strange and baffling younger brother without the sense to stay out of trouble, Mitchell had become more of a friend.
Mitchell got yet another basket in ahead of him. Daniel sighed and had a drink of water.
“What’s going on with you today, Sparky?” Mitchell teased. “Seriously, I don’t usually pummel you this badly.”
“Not beaten me yet,” Daniel shot back, stealing the ball and sending it to the basket.
“Ah,” Mitchell said with a smirk. “Vala.”
Daniel glared and sent the ball quickly in Mitchell’s direction with a muttered oath.
Looking at the spot the ball had impacted the wall with a noise almost like a whip crack, he lifted the ball and looked at Daniel. “You missed,” He deadpanned. “The hoop’s in that direction.”
Daniel looked at him with a glare. “I wasn’t aiming for the hoop, even if your mouth is wide enough to be one.”
“Ah,” Mitchell replied. “Funny man. Funny cranky man.”
* * * *
“I don't know, I
really don't know,
If this castle in the sand,
Is strong enough to stand,
Clouds come down.”
- Evermore, ‘Running’
Vala didn’t know where to go. She wandered the base aimlessly, trying not to let the sensation remind her of the year before when she had felt homeless even on base. She didn’t have an office or a lab. She had no idea why she had no appetite, why she was avoiding her friends … avoiding the very people who had fretted over her absence for months and put their lives at risk to bring her back. And most of all she had no idea why she had run from Daniel that morning simply because he’d managed to make her lower her guard temporarily. What she had was rather a lot of pent up rage and anger at everything she could name in her thoughts, but mainly at herself and the stupidity of the humans who had inflicted this on her.
“Ma’am?” A baffled guard asked as she banged into him.
Vala stuttered an apology while registering that the man was in gym sweats.
Perfect.
Vala closed her eyes, rooted to the spot as something in her that had been on the edge of breaking snapped.
* * * *
Sam was at her desk working on a lab report when Daniel walked in with two cups of coffee and a thunderstorm playing on his features. She watched calmly as he sat down, sitting the beverages out slowly and silently but was unsurprised when he stood and began to pace. Turning back to her lab report, she took a sip of her coffee. Sam knew he would talk when he wanted to. Right now he was content to wear out her floor.
* * * *
“You don't need a
broken heart,
To know a heart can be broken.
You just need to open your eyes.
We don't need to be deceived,
To know a lie can be spoken.
We don't have to learn everything twice.”
- Evermore, ‘Running’
Relief.
That’s what it was.
After days of moping around, hoping that something would magically just fix her, it was a relief and release to be fighting something. Even if it was just a stuffed bag, it was still a relief to feel her fists impacting on something solid that she could imagine at least was one of her tormentors. Preferably many if not all of them, standing in line to feel a blow she inflicted.
Relieved to find one of the smaller gyms in the complex deserted, Vala had stood in front of the punch bag for a long time. This gym was designed for learning hand-to-hand combat. It had tougher punch bags and a full-wall mirror to correct posture and form. She had turned her head to see her reflection, something she had done often before all this but not since. Vala felt like she’d lost most of her vanity along with almost half a year of her life.
She didn’t like what she saw.
So much so she had turned to face the mirror straight on and analysed herself. Thanks to the stasis, there wasn’t much of a physical difference. Tensing her arms and legs in warm-up stretches, she could feel her muscles as taut and toned as ever. The difference was in the posture, in the expression. Her shoulders and head sat lower, feet closer together. Less humour, less spark, less defiance. More whipped kitten. Not something she wanted to see.
“I don’t care if it
makes you look like a man,” Her father had shouted, teaching her basic defence
skills after a young man of the village had thought her easy pickings. “Legs
should be just over the width of your shoulders, otherwise someone will do
this!” He had knocked her off-balance and into the dirt to prove his point. It
wouldn’t be the last time she landed on her ass to learn a lesson.
Vala had done something slowly and consciously that she’d done automatically for the years since she’d been a host and the years before that. She took a fighter’s position, legs apart for balance, stomach muscles held taut and brought her fists up.
“Flat,” he had said
roughly, grabbing her fist and hitting her uneven fingers with his palm until
they were as even as they could be. Her father had been a tavern brawler and
fought with his fists. He had taught her to throw her first punch. He twisted
her arm until her closed fist was before her eyes. He pointed to the thumb held
beneath her fingers. “You see this? You throw a punch with that hiding behind
your other fingers, you break half the bones in your hand.”
When satisfied, she stepped towards the punch bag.
“Fix those feet!” She
had jumped at the brisk tone. She’d been caught pointing her toes out again.
“Point in one direction – the one you’re punching!”
Vala took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she punched, her father’s voice ringing in her ears.
“How many times do I have
to tell you?” He had shouted irritably, taking the blows she gave on his
forearms. He grabbed her forearm hard enough to bruise as she punched again,
looking her in the eye. “Punch from here,” he’d snapped, eyes crackling and
placing a surprisingly gentle hand on her shoulder. “Never your elbow. Quick
way to use up all your energy and strain muscles.”
Vala felt the flat of her fist impact the bag with a fierce thump. Unlike the punch before, this one didn’t make the muscles in her arm shudder under the force she put behind it. Punching faster and faster, images and memories blurred through her mind and before she knew it Vala was beginning to change position and kick the bag as well, practicing all the things Qetesh had taught her body.
At the thought of where the kicks and turns she was using had come from images ripped through Vala’s mind and she landed a solid blow for each one, losing herself in the rhythm and the memories.
That boy – the one who had bruised her cheek and made her father teach her to fight.
She punched.
Her stepmother looking down at her because she dared be her father’s daughter.
She punched.
The day Qetesh had come to the market and decided she would
make a good host, only more convinced when she broke some of the bones in her
hand punching a
She kicked.
Atrocities, too many to number. Some to those she had known, some to those she hadn’t but all agony.
She kicked.
Those faces she had felt agony for twisted in anger and hate, turning the blows back on her.
She turned, punched.
The Ori. Adria.
She kicked again,
ferociously.
Sealed in a box and locked in her own past, feeling all her pain anew.
A volley of punches and the distant, unheeded knowledge her hands were unprotected from this kind of punishment.
“Again!” Her father’s
voice was in her ears, demanding that she fight off the tiredness and the pain.
“The only way to build up enough resistance on your knuckles is to bruise
them!” Vala couldn’t ignore that voice.
Being pulled from the box by friends with concerned expressions. A hand steadying her as she swayed and fell from exhaustion.
Vala’s final punch landed and her fist remained against the bag, sweat pouring down her temples. She brought her other fist up to join it and leaned her forehead against them, breathing hard.
This wasn’t going to fix her, either, she realised. But it felt damn better than thinking and brought her back to a shadow of herself. For right now, that was enough.
A hand touched her shoulder. Teal’c held out a canteen of water and a towel, inclining his head at her gasped thanks. When she had caught her breath, he held out a training staff. Vala smiled and nodded. She took the staff, stretching out her clenched hands and moved into position. Soon the small gym echoed with the sound of staff meeting staff.
* * * *
“You are everything I
wanted,
The scars of all I’ll
ever know,
You saw all my pieces
broken,
This darkness I could
never show.
If I told you that you
were right,
Would you take my hand
tonight?”
- The
Hair damp from her shower, Vala walked into her quarters. She almost leapt when she saw Daniel sitting in her armchair sound asleep, but stopped herself in time.
Smiling and sitting on the edge of the bed in front of him, she tilted her head as she took off his glasses. As she sat them on her bookcase, admittedly mostly filled with DVDs, he stirred.
Ten minutes later, as he came to wakefulness, he saw Vala sitting opposite a small table she’d pulled over from the other side of the room. Between them sat plates of hot food and cups of coffee.
“Wha-?” Daniel asked, head still foggy. As he asked inarticulate questions, Vala reached over and placed his glasses in his hand. He looked at them for a moment as if forgetting what to do with them then placed them on his face. Next he found a hot cup of coffee in his hand and took a sip. “Now it’s better,” he said with a slow smile. He looked at the dinner and then at Vala, wondering what was going on and how she’d managed to get her hands on blue jello at this hour.
She held up a hand, food precariously balanced on the fork that had been halfway to her mouth when he’d started speaking. “Before you think that I’m reading too much into everything, I brought this because I was hungry and you were here.” She paused to grab a quick breath. “Two friends and co-workers, etc.”
Daniel smiled and ducked his head, picking up his fork and nodding. “I can do that.” After a minute he looked at her curiously. “Speaking of better …”
Daniel winced when she waggled her fingers, noticing her bandaged knuckles. “I hit things. It helped.” She shrugged and grinned. “So what gossip have I missed?”
Daniel grinned in return and tucked into his food. “Well, Siler’s still chasing Nurse Adamson, but Harriman told me she’s just playing hard to get…”
Author’s Note: Well??? Review and tell me how bad the fluff rating is. Oh and when Mitchell calls Daniel ‘Sparky,’ it’s a clue to my other current obsession … Weir/Sheppard from Atlantis :D
CHAPTER 4: Event Horizon
Vala jostled her shoulder against Teal’c’s in the gate room. He simply looked at her unmoved and raised an eyebrow at her wide smile as she moved from foot to foot.
“Princess,” Mitchell said with a roll of his eyes and an amused smile, “You can’t go through the gate if you’re bouncing.”
“Why?” Vala pouted. “I’ve read the mission files. And half the time we get thrown back-”
“Because Landry will have you put in day care like the child you are,” He shot back with a grin.
Vala glared at him before turning to Sam and Daniel with mute appeal in her eyes. “He wouldn’t … He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
Sam grinned and shook her head, “I don’t think so.”
Vala turned back to Mitchell with an arch smile. “Ha.” She then paused and looked at Daniel, “Are you going to let him speak to me like that? It’s very rude.”
Daniel and Mitchell shared a look and Daniel was saved from answering by Landry’s amused voice from the control room. “SG-1, you have a go.”
“Oh, thank God,” Mitchell muttered, earning him a swat on the arm from Sam as he lazily saluted the control room. There was a silent but welcome return to normal in Vala’s presence back on the team hidden under the usual layers of sarcasm.
“Make it spin!” Vala said dramatically with a toss of her hair. Harriman stared and then looked to Landry, who nodded. “Oops,” Vala added, “I forgot that was your line.”
Daniel patted her shoulder with a rueful smile that he couldn’t stop turning into a grin when she smiled at him.
“Guessing you missed this, then?” He asked with a gesture to the now-spinning gate.
She nodded with a softer smile, “Especially the last few weeks, when you and the others started going back out there. I didn’t mean for you to take that much time away because of me.”
Daniel brushed it off as the last chevron locked. A small part of his mind was amazed that it didn’t seem to matter what she went through, there was still a childlike excitement that couldn’t be dampened.
Two weeks previous:
“She’s been quieter,”
Daniel answered Sam’s query after a moment. “Which, a year ago, I would’ve said
would be my ideal Christmas present…”
“She’ll get it back,”
Sam replied, “I’ve seen her looking at things with that look again.”
“Should we put locks
on drawers?” Daniel asked, amused.
Sam shook her head,
“Not that look – the one that reminds me of you ten years ago.”
“What’s that meant to
mean?” Daniel has asked, not sure if this was a compliment or a backhanded one.
“Remember when every
little shard sticking out of the dirt could change history as we know it?”
“Oh.”
“Daaaaniel…. Daniel!” He shook his head as he felt an insistent little prod on his arm.
Mitchell gave him that amused look again as Vala rolled her eyes and indicated impatiently towards the now active gate.
“SG-1, move out,” Landry’s voice said from the control room.
“You heard the man,” Mitchell said, beginning the walk up the ramp.
Vala stepped up to his level and grinned, pointing at the even horizon. “Make it so, captain!”
He looked at her, deeply amused, “That’s lieutenant colonel and who gave you Star Trek?”
“Teal’c,” Vala explained, smiling at the jaffa, “But he was right – it wasn’t as good as Star Wars.” Sam groaned and Daniel sighed with a smile and a shake of his head. Vala stopped just short of the event horizon. “What?”
“That’s a whole sci-fi fan argument you really don’t want to get into around those two,” Daniel said, indicating Teal’c and Mitchell as they went through the gate and putting a hand on the small of her back to gently push her through the event horizon.
* * * *
Three months later:
“Receiving SG-1’s IDC, sir,” Harriman said.
“Open the iris,” Landry confirmed, pressing the intercom as SG-1 stepped through. “Colonel Mitchell, how are the negotiations progressing?”
Mitchell nodded and grinned.
“Debrief in one hour, then,” Landry concluded.
* * * *
Daniel stood suddenly, catching everyone in the room by surprise. He walked to the front of the briefing room, head ducked slightly and expression thoughtful.
“Daniel?" Sam asked, watching as the archaeologist approached the board showing the schematics of the Renasri shielding technology.
"We have to protect this planet," Daniel said quietly. "This is it - this is where we beat them."
"I'm not sure I-" Landry began as Daniel raised a hand.
"Daniel," Vala said quietly, "You told me once that if you study enough religions, you realise that killing the missionaries won't defeat the religion."
Daniel nodded and met her eyes.
Mitchell turned to Landry. "General, this could be important." He paused, then continued. "You're talking about an ideological victory. If one planet can refuse the Ori and survive, then it's a major blow."
Vala began to speak, but Teal'c said, "The level of technology possessed by the Renasri is almost unique in this galaxy. Less advanced civilisations would not be able to repeat their success. Many would die."
Daniel nodded with a faint smile. "You aren't going to believe this. Tolerance."
The silence in the briefing room was absolute.
"You're right," Mitchell quipped. "I don't believe it."
Daniel smiled and pointed to the Renasri shields. "The Ori have an armada, with thousands of followers, most of whom are farmers, villagers and people with no more choice than the biological dependence imposed on the jaffa by the Goa'uld. We can't beat them on military grounds, that much we know. So we adapt instead."
Landry was frowning and Mitchell looked at him and paused. Vala quietly defended Daniel. "Nothing else we've tried has had much of an effect. I say we hear this out." Daniel looked at her in thanks as she shrugged. "Don't read into it, if it's stupid I have ammunition against you."
Daniel smiled and ducked her head before looking at the others. "The Ori have been here for all of two years. Defeating the goa'uld took nearly a decade of virtually all out war. And although they are a more immediate problem, we can't expect to defeat them in the space of months."
Mitchell couldn't contain himself. "Yes, but in that time, they could have defeated and wiped out us."
Daniel shook his head. "Not if the Renasri shields are in place on all planets allied to us. And on any planet that wants to refuse the Ori."
“We could do that?” Mitchell asked Sam, who shrugged and appeared thoughtful.
“Our technology is different and uses a different power source … we don’t use mental initialisation,” Sam responded, “I may be able to make it work remotely, removing the human element to the shield technology.”
Vala sat forward, then stood up and talked directly to Daniel. "If we could pull it off … They'd never see it coming. They're expecting us to fight with ships and guns, not force it onto ideological grounds."
Nodding, Daniel replied, "It would be committing to this fight as a long-term battle, but we knew that was coming."
"We’d have time to prepare a counter-attack," Vala added, stepping to within a foot of Daniel.
"We buy time to get hearts and minds," he confirmed. "It's where it all started against the goa'uld. Before you kill the monster, you have to take off the mask."
"Hey!" Mitchell interrupted. Daniel and Vala turned to the rest of the briefing room, both seemingly just remembering where they were. "Sounds great, but what is it and how does it stop us all dying honourably?"
Daniel and Vala exchanged grins. She nodded to him. "It was your plan."
"We protect the Renasri," Daniel said, face slightly flushed and eyes bright. "We replicate their shield technology."
"We offer it to our allies," Vala continued. "Anyone who wants to refuse the Ori can."
"So," Mitchell said slowly, smiling slightly, "When the Priors turn up with their ultimatum, the people have an actual choice."
"Before long," Sam chipped in. "Worlds that gave in for fear of plague and death start to take the other road."
"It provides an opportunity to inform the inhabitants of planets approached by priors that the Ori do not truly offer ascension," Teal'c added.
"And the means to prove that technology does not equal divine right," Landry added.
“Either the Ori adapt their teachings to become more desirable, curbing their worst atrocities in the meantime,” Vala continued, “Or become very lonely all of a sudden in the Milky Way.”
"That's not all," Daniel smiled. "We've been looking for a way to the head of the monster instead of the priors and the followers. We know that the Ori draw on the energy of their followers. This actually hurts them, not the people they use."
"And it just might be enough," Mitchell added, "to bring the Ori themselves out to play."
Daniel nodded. "Which would force the Ancients to intervene."
Vala looked around the room. "Exactly." She walked up to the edge of the table and took a deep breath, looking at the inactive stargate and bracing herself.
"There's only one flaw in it, but it's a big one." Vala walked to the window to the stargate, fighting her hands to stillness and breathing deeply. She felt Daniel's eyes follow her.
There was a beat of silence. "It only takes one person to render a shield inactive," Teal'c said bluntly. "And the Orici can pass through the Renasri shield technology."
"We need to kill Adria," Vala said, voice heavy. Everyone turned to look at her, back facing the room. She turned, eyes bright and fists balled. "Someone had to say it. And it's simple, isn't it?" She looked at each of them in turn. "The Renasri shield technology is the only way to turn the tide of this war short of the Ancients intervening. We know from Morgan that that isn't going to happen. The only person in the universe other than the Ori themselves capable of passing through or negating those shields is Adria, because she's part of the Ori themselves."
Daniel and Mitchell began to say something, but Vala cut them off. "It's okay, Daniel. I know what we need to do. The whole plan hinges on it. One or many and all that..." She turned back to the window.
Daniel nodded and sat again. Mitchell raised his hand, and Landry nodded to him. He looked at Vala, whose back was turned to the table. "Meaning no offense, Vala, but my question was less of the morals and more to the method."
Teal'c nodded, "That is indeed a valid concern."
Daniel looked troubled. "We're seriously going to do this? Plot the death of a young woman in cold blood?"
"Before a question of should is can," Sam interjected. "We all know what she's capable of."
"No, no," Daniel argued. "I think should is a valid question, even now."
Mitchell spoke in the silence that fell. "Sam is right. She's telekinetic, shielded and powerful along with who knows what else.”
“Daniel has a point, too." Vala walked over and sat down, her voice incredibly quiet and contained as she folded her hands on the table. "Everyone is a mother's child."
CHAPTER 5: Painted by Numbers
Author’s Note: Song title by The Sounds. The last section may be a little confusing, it’s experimental (we all know I love that)… I hope everyone gets it. I tried something like it in a Tamora Pierce fanfic a few years back and it was a 50/50 reaction – half liked and got, half didn’t get. I think I’ve improved since then, though. Definitely on the grammar remembers just how long that took to master and how affect/effect still causes hesitations and use of the word ‘impact’ instead…
The walked efficiently up the stairs to the briefing room, Vala ‘phoning in’ her part from what looked to be another galaxy as they assured the general that the plan to assassinate Adria would work. Considering the topic, Daniel didn’t blame her and Landry didn’t call her on it.
“You’re sure?” He asked again.
Mitchell nodded. “Vala’s contact is a specialist in personal shield technology. We’re sure.”
Landry looked out of the window to the Stargate, standing next to Vala and sharing a long look with her. She nodded with a small smile and he turned to the others.
“You have a go.”
* * * *
Two weeks later:
“She survived the Ancient weapon – the one that destroyed the replicators and everyone on that planet,” A captain pointed out, “How can we be sure this will work?”
Mitchell came to the fire and intercepted the question before Daniel could answer, “We’ve modified the ordinance with help from our allies. It’ll work.” He turned to Daniel. “Where’s Vala?”
“In her tent, I presume,” Daniel said with a shrug, “Why do you assume I would know?”
“You usually do,” Mitchell retorted, raising a hand in farewell when the captain made a hasty retreat.
“Well, we’re not chained together anymore,” Daniel replied.
“Jeez, defensive? How about because she’s your friend? Do I get away with that one?” Mitchell said, throwing a packet of crisps across the fire to him.
Daniel coloured a little and shook his head with an apology that Mitchell waved off as he stood to check on Vala.
* * * *
Some hours later:
Vala met Daniel’s eyes with a long breath and conflicted gaze as they ducked in the underbrush, listening intently to the radio update.
“Plan A is down,” Came the hurried verdict from the town and
“The poison took out the priors but not Adria,” Vala said softly, looking at Daniel with worry.
“Next?” Daniel said, just as quietly and placing a hand below her elbow to help her to her feet. His hand lingered a moment longer as if trying to support her through their mission… to kill her daughter.
“Plan B,” Vala replied resolutely, her own hand lingering a moment too long when she handed him the radio he’d sat down.
* * * *
Later:
Reynolds sat in the small room with Samantha Carter and two members of SG-3, location of others unknown or unpleasant. This was why he didn’t particularly like working with SG-1 on missions. Great people, friends – even Vala lately, roll on O’Malley’s, Mitchell needed knocked off the pool league for his sins, but why did all their missions tend to go to hell? Hero complexes, one and all.
“…Shouldn’t the
‘modified ordinance’ have blown up by now?”
“Twelve seconds ago,
to be exact.”
“That’s exact.”
“That’s worrying.”
“Do we have a Plan C?”
“
“They’re in the trees,
get to the gate! The ground troops are trying to get back to the ship!”
“Mitchell, we’ll meet
you at the RV point in five.”
“Vala, what are you
doing? Put that damn radio back on and pick up the gun! Get back on the line!”
“Vala, it’s me. You
don’t have to do this!”
An overheard snippet
through an active radio in the brush: “The Orici will be pleased with us…Is it
appropriate to lay hands on the mother of the Orici? … How else are we going to
carry her back to the ship? …” … shuffling… “Ready? … Activate the rings…”
“Reynolds, me and
Jackson are headed back to you. Back in five.”
They didn’t arrive in five minutes. They didn’t arrive at all.
CHAPTER 6: Dying to Say This to You
Author’s Notes: Song title by fantastic band The Sounds, my current favourite.
After being thoroughly searched and forced to change into a dress ‘befitting the mother of the Orici’ at staff point, Vala was pushed into a small room. Scanning the room, she quickly found that it had been emptied of anything she might use as a weapon.
Reaching to her ankle, she turned off the very small version of the phase shift technology tied to her foot. Sam had modified a device found while she’d been in the Ori galaxy on a small scale. When asked why it couldn’t be used to hide whole towns or planets, she’d replied it just wasn’t ready for that kind of scale yet.
Vala avoided the golden eyes of her daughter as she leaned out of the embrace. She smiled guardedly as she reached a hand behind her back, feeling cold.
“I wish things could be different, mother,” Adria said earnestly with a sweet smile.
Vala swallowed and met her eyes again. “So do I,” she whispered as she sunk the long, thin and primitive blade into Adria’s abdomen.
As the younger woman collapsed, clutching her wound, Vala softened the fall and lowered Adria’s head to her lap. As her daughter’s left arm fell, Vala didn’t know whether to block out or be thankful for the fireball fading back into Adria’s palm. It was cold comfort to know she’d only done what her daughter had been about to do.
“You can’t heal yourself, we know. That's why they gave you the shield,” Vala stated, receiving only a shake of the head in answer. She felt strangely numb for all that Adria was the one bleeding. “That’s a power they couldn’t grant you. It crossed one too many lines.”
“I stopped …” Adria gasped. “I stopped their plan. The bomb. The poison. They searched … How?”
Vala didn’t fight the tears that ran burned in her eyes and fell to her daughter’s cheek. “Adria,” she said softly.
“I am Orici,” She whispered defiantly, glaring up at Vala and coughing up blood.
“You are my daughter,” Vala insisted. “And the blood you spill coats my hands. I couldn’t allow more to kill or die in the Ori’s name,” she paused, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Or yours.”
“I … I stopped them…” Adria whispered again, voice growing weaker. “Their plan didn’t … it didn’t kill me.”
“Adria,” Vala put a hand on her cheek and made her daughter meet her eyes, her tone gentle. “They weren’t trying to kill you. I was the plan.”
“No … You couldn’t … no…” Adria’s eyes flitted wildly from side to side, locking onto Vala’s.
“I could’ve loved you,” Vala’s voice throbbed as more tears came. “You left me no choice…” Her voice trailed off.
“There’s always a choice,” Adria answered, pain and anger colouring her tone as she closed her eyes and began to shake. “Mine was to trust your weakness.” She smiled bitterly and turned her head. “Apparently I underestimated your ruthlessness.”
Vala nodded, her eyes now dry. “You’re right, I made a choice. And as much as I want to, I can’t regret it. ”
Adria closed her eyes, her breathing becoming ragged. Swallowing hard and leaning her head back, Vala felt for the small lump behind her ear, activating the dormant and undetectable transmitter to tap out the affirmative.
Adria opened her eyes and smiled at Vala. “I could’ve loved you too, Mother.” She reached up a hand to touch her cheek. Adria’s hand fell to clasp Vala’s tightly as she arched her back in pain. Breathing hard and her grip loosening, she spoke so faintly Vala had to lean forward to hear her.
Vala’s head snapped around at the sounds of distant gunfire and alarms in the hallway outside the small chamber. When she turned her eyes back to Adria, she was dead.
It took a few stunned moments for Adria’s softly concerned last words to find their way to Vala’s awareness.
“Who will protect you
from evil now?”
* * * *
Two hours previous:
Colonel Reynolds looked at Sam hesitantly. She looked at him. “She’s telepathic.”
“Still could have told us,” Reynolds answered with a smile.
“Telepathic,” Sam repeated, rolling her eyes.
“So how –”
“Small anti-prior device with a very short range implanted behind her ear,” Sam interrupted distractedly, eyes on the monitor in her hand an airman made a crack about ‘this being why other teams don’t usually work with them.’
“If you’re sure,” Reynolds said dubiously.
“We are.”
Reynolds didn’t say she was spending too much time with General O’Neill. He thought it, but he didn’t say it. “Colonel Mitchell and Doctor Jackson?”
* * * *
Present
Daniel, Mitchell and the other members of SG-3 held in position in the cargo bay, waiting on Vala’s signal to move.
“New toy?” Daniel remarked, looking at the palm pilot Mitchell was messing with.
He grinned and held it up. “Present from the Atlantis expedition. We managed to get their life signs detectors working almost as well without the gene.”
About to reply, Daniel paused and tapped the comm. in his ear and nodded to Mitchell. As Mitchell watched, he tapped out the code on his arm with his index and middle fingers. Mitchell nodded and took a deep breath, meeting Daniel’s eyes.
“She did it,” Daniel said quietly and almost disbelievingly.
Mitchell nodded. “Let’s get going,” He said to the room.
“Ding dong, the witch is dead,” An airman muttered under his breath to be cuffed across the head by Mitchell roughly, who grabbed his vest and pulled him up short.
“And we’re about to extract the witch’s mother, who just had the pleasure of killing her,” He said, voice low and angry as he roughly let go of the airman, “Try some respect for another member of this command if nothing else.”
Daniel nodded with a slight subdued smile as they walked out, guns raised.
* * * *
Later, a bloodied Daniel found her cradling the body of the daughter she had killed.
“I thought somehow … somehow they would ascend her,” Vala said quietly, not looking at him. “They gave her this burden. Why wouldn’t they?”
He knelt beside her. “She was too powerful. The Ori don’t share power unless there’s something in it for them. They don’t reward devotion or act fairly. We know that.”
Vala nodded, trying to control her emotions. “I still thought … She was a puppet. The Ancients… The Ori… I thought someone would see fit to make it up to her. She should still have been a child.”
“She didn’t die alone,” Daniel said gently. “That has to be worth something.”
Vala nodded and cupped Adria’s cheek with her hand, knowing they had to leave but unsure how to stand and knowing that once they left his room, somehow everything would be different.
Daniel put a hand on her shoulder, watching as she ducked her head and let go of Adria’s lifeless hand, setting her body on the floor of the chamber. Daniel looked at the forlorn and prone figure they were leaving behind, seeing the wreckage left in the wake of the Ori. He remembered Vala’s words before they sprung the trap that had led to this, the Orici cold, dead and ultimately human, abandoned on her own ship.
Two days previous.
Previous to entering
the ship.
Vala turned to Daniel,
eyes distressed. They were waiting on the signal.
“When we do this,” she
asked suddenly. “What will it make us?”
“Desperate?” Daniel
had answered, eyes watching for signs of the enemy.
“We’re already
desperate,” Vala had replied. “And don’t tell me you don’t know what I mean.”
He turned to her. “
Second thoughts?”
“No,” Vala had replied
vehemently. “But I wonder what I’ll be when it’s done. What does being capable
of this make me?”
“Desperate. I was serious
when I said that.” Daniel put both of his hands on her arms and made her look
at him. “This will haunt you, I’m not pretending otherwise. Do you think it’s
the right thing to do?”
Vala hadn’t answered
for several long seconds, then met his eyes, her gaze resolute. “It can’t be,
not for me. I can’t go against an instinct that runs deep and churns to think
of it. But there’s more at stake and no-one else stands a chance against her.”
“Wrong thing, right
reasons,” Daniel had summarised and Vala had nodded in reply.
A few moments later, there was an explosion in the distance. They looked at each other and nodded, moving away into the darkness.
Daniel helped Vala to her feet and guided her from the chamber.
She didn’t look back.
CHAPTER 7: Don’t Be Sorry, There’s No Reason
Author’s Notes: FLUFF! Oops, did I just say… fluff? I
did, didn’t I? Oh well, now I’ll have your attention, I suppose…yes, I am
grinning evilly. ‘Tiny bit of
Dedicated to two marvellously inspirational ladies… Stef (Vala MD on here) and Cleo the Muse (known as … Cleo the Muse everywhere). Stef’s one shot inspired this scene, and her wallpapers are amazing, and her videos…and her fics. Sickeningly talented, this one. Cleo is also just brilliant. And she shares my deep-seated sarcasm. And is so much better at updating than I am. These two are also known as genius!
Title lyrics from ‘Night After Night’ by… The Sounds. It’s a problem, I know.
Carolyn Lam had gone to Vala’s quarters to give her a
check-up. Yes, she had just gone through a traumatic experience but if she had
injuries they needed to be treated and she clearly wasn’t reporting to the
infirmary post-mission of her own free will. The team had returned in the early
hours that morning, the time difference on the other side of the gate rather
extreme in this case. She knocked repeatedly and got no answer, despite hearing
stirrings inside. Usually the brusque doctor would have simply told an SF to
knock it down, being the sympathetic soul she wasn’t most of the time. In this
case, and given the fact that Vala walked through the gate and to her quarters
in good physical health at least, Lam decided to call in help. She was aiming
for Dr. Jackson or Sam but ran into
“Vala, open the door.”
Silence.
“Vala, open it now. This is your CO,”
“You say that like I’ll do what I’m told.”
“No,”
“It’d be better to just take the hinges off,” Vala responded
contemplatively as
“On the other hand, you could just… Oh, I don’t know, open it. And let Carolyn take a quick look at you.”
Silence.
“Or we could just leave you in the pit of despair you’ve
been hiding in for the last fourteen hours,”
“I like that plan.”
“I’ve heard better.”
“No, no, really, I kinda like it,” Vala shot back, and
Silence again, but this time from
“I’m fine,” Vala said quietly and numbly, “I just want to be left alone for a little while. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“No-one’s saying you have to be okay straight away,”
“And you should eat something,” Lam put in. “Or at least drink some water.”
“I have water and power bars here,” Vala replied logically.
Lam looked at Daniel, who arrived with a frown in casual
clothes and with wet hair, obviously surprised to see other people around Vala’s
door. “She didn’t go to the infirmary?” Lam shook her head. “She hasn’t left
her room?” She repeated the action as
“You just need to be looked at, okay?”
“I do that every time we’re in the gym,” Vala’s crackling voice had a kernel of deep amusement.
Daniel nodded, moving towards the door. “Vala, it’s me.”
“Vala, it’s me,” the radio crackled from the forest floor. “You don’t have to do this. Say the word.” He’d seen her face and knew letting herself be captured to kill her daughter had suddenly become visceral, real, when the Ori guards had laid hands on her. Always trying to save me.
Silence.
Daniel leaned his forearm on the door and put his forehead against it. “Can you let me in? Please?”
The door opened sharply and Daniel fell forward, only just catching his balance to meet her crackling red eyes and the BDUs still stained with Adria’s blood. Her voice was tightly restrained and brittle, her grip on the open door making her knuckles white and her arm muscles iron.
“You think because you ask I’ll open the door? Because it’s you? When I send Cameron and Carolyn stuffing?”
“Yes,” Daniel snapped back without thinking, standing close to her, “And it’s ‘packing.’”
As quickly as it had been opened, the door slammed shut on his face again, so quickly he could feel the breeze.
“If she’d been herself and we’d explained that,” Mitchell remarked lightly, “She’d be positively proud of that innuendo.”
“In your dreams,” Lam said with a raised eyebrow, “And I mean the PG-rated ones.” She turned to Daniel with a glance at the SF. “Make her eat something and come see me tomorrow night at the latest,” She said warningly, signalling the SF and leaving.
“Playing hard to get,” Mitchell quipped to Daniel.
“Only in your dreams if you keep acting that smooth,” Vala remarked from the other side of the door. “But it was a nice attempt.”
Daniel and
“You’ll criticise my flirting but you won’t open the door?”
“That’s about right, yes. Astute, Cameron, truly.”
Daniel frowned, hearing the tension vibrating in her voice – an undercurrent timbre that she couldn’t quite disguise in her sharp remarks and unnecessary bite. And she still hadn’t let them in.
Cameron fixed his gaze on Daniel and when the archaeologist met his eyes, he nodded and patted him on the shoulder before doing the same to the door and leaving.
Daniel turned back to the door with a sigh and saw a passing airman look at him strangely when he sat down against the opposite wall and wrapped an arm around his knee, running a hand through his damp hair.
“It’s just me now,” Daniel said quietly. “Will you let me in?”
“You haven’t tried the lock,” Vala replied after a minute.
“What?”
“You haven’t tried the lock,” She repeated slowly, “It was the first thing Cameron and Carolyn did when I wouldn’t let them in.”
“Is it locked?”
“Maybe. You aren’t going to try and find out?” He heard her swallow as she spoke.
“Is that permission?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not going to try and find out,” He answered simply. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard an ‘oh.’
Silence again.
“Vala…” Daniel said softly, trying not to sound too childish. “This floor’s cold. And I’m sitting on it.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
”Well, I’m not moving until I see you.”
“You did earlier,” She said with that logic again, “When I walked to my chambers and when I opened the door.”
“That’s not what I-”
“Or you could leave,” Her voice was perfectly reasonable. She had that tone down pat, Daniel knew, saying the most obvious and insane things in the exact same tone and making you doubt which was which in the process.
“No.”
“Fine,” She bit back.
“Good.”
“Great.”
Silence again.
She hadn’t opened the door, but from the sound of her voice she was still sitting against it.
“You lied to me,” Daniel accused her suddenly, hoping to anger her into opening the door if just to shout at him.
“Recently?”
“Today.”
“Oh. What’d I say?”
“In the gate room. You said you’d go to the infirmary,” Daniel responded.
“No I didn’t,” Came the heated reply, “I said ‘m-hmm.’ You assumed I said yes.”
“‘M-hmm’ is practically yes,” Daniel countered.
“Except when it’s not.”
Any other time Daniel would have been amused by her indignant response and seeming regression to immaturity.
“You’re letting that one go?” Her voice said hesitantly a few minutes of silence later. Their voices overlapped when he didn’t reply instantly, Vala’s rising a little.
“Daniel?”
“You’ll win anyway.”
“Oh.”
Daniel shifted position to sit with his back against the door and lean his head against it.
“What’re you doing?” Vala asked curiously.
“Moving,” He answered, “My legs were going to sleep.”
There was a pause.
“It means-”
“I know what it means,” She cut him off, voice tense. A charged moment later there came a sigh. “Try the door.”
“Really?”
“Before I change my mind or aeons pass, Daniel,” Vala replied with mildly amused irritation.
He pulled himself to his feet slowly, wincing at the painful tingly feeling in his legs and opening the door a crack, peering his head around and confirming his suspicion that she was huddled up against it.
“It wasn’t locked,” He stated slowly, stepping into her quarters and looking down at her. Hair still in the same ponytail as fifteen hours earlier, same BDUs, huddled up and her knees pulled up to her chest, her back was firmly against the steel.
“I opened it when you got here,” Vala admitted quietly, not looking at him.
Daniel put his own back against the door and sat down beside her on the cold floor.
“There’s a bed,” Vala stated, neither looking at the other.
“Innuendo?” Daniel was never sure.
He saw her grin and shake her head. “You were complaining about sitting on a cold floor. A bed isn’t a cold floor.”
Daniel noticed she hadn’t been joking about the power bars, the remark he’d heard as he came around the corner. Thing was, they weren’t really in an edible condition anymore, lying in broken chunks at the foot of the opposite wall. Daniel looked at them and then at the other bits of debris. He then noticed shiny flecks on the wall that he didn’t think were from cranberry juice cartons.
Turning to Vala and wrapping a larger hand around her wrist despite her mute protests, he held her bloodied knuckles up to his view and gave her a look. She shrugged, meeting his eyes.
“Mitchell said you could hit him,” Daniel said in all seriousness, “You should do that instead. He’s more annoying. And we’re used to fixing him.”
“Not so much with the wall?”
“Not so much.”
She conceded the point and reclaimed her hand slowly, looking away again.
Daniel surveyed the room, expecting more damage than there was. A few thrown power bars, a few broken plates and some clutter. Her sheets were in chaos and her pillows in the middle rather than at the head of the bed, speaking to some curled-up crying, but all in all Daniel had expected a more explosive reaction.
Then he noticed her hand and remembered the tone of voice, knowing suddenly and sharply that whatever impetus had made her throw power bars – curious choice - at the wall was much less significant than the one making her pluck at the dried blood patches on her BDU and that suppressed layer in her voice, just a vanguard or a precursor to the main force. Looking around the room and noting that of all the places to curl up she chose against the door, Daniel realised that she shouldn’t be there when that second wave hit. Not sitting on a cold floor in blood-stained clothes in an anonymous room.
Daniel looked at his watch and then at the dishevelled woman beside him. “Vala?”
She didn’t move or reply, but he noticed her eyes seemed to fill.
“Are you going to sleep here?” He asked very quietly and cautiously.
She ducked her head and shook it, meeting his eyes with a sad smile. “I don’t know how I’m going to sleep, Daniel., never mind…” Her eyes took on a haunted look as she surveyed the rather militaristic room, returning to her bloodied green thigh.
Daniel sat up so that he was hunched down in front of her and gently lifted the hand from the darkened splatters. “Come on.”
CHAPTER 8: Human Behaviour
Author’s Note: Chapter title from Bjork. This continues in much the same style as before.
“You find your way
back down,
And I’ll keep the area
clear,
When you find your way
back down,
In one piece,
Then I’ll just be
waiting here, right here.”
- Imogen Heap, ‘Clear the Area’
“Daniel?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I use your shower?”
He showed her where it was then put the pizza they’d bought on the way on a plate and in the oven.
“You can’t wear those
outside the mountain,” He’d said quietly, pulling her to her feet and going to
her drawers, holding up the first pair of grey slacks that came to his hands
and looking at her. “Mine?”
She shrugged. “I
didn’t have any that were comfortable. Yours were already broken in.”
Daniel thought of
asking why she hadn’t just asked him, but what came out of his mouth was a
curious, “When’d you take them?”
“About a year and a
half ago,” She said with a shy grin, “That night I em, surprised you in your
room. They were in with my other things when I got back from the Ori galaxy.”
“You can keep them,”
He replied ironically, thinking that there was no point in arguing since he
hadn’t missed them in eighteen months anyway and probably owned innumerable
identical pairs.
He fully expected a
biting ‘why, thank you’ or something of that ilk and it told him everything he
needed to know when she merely smiled sadly and sat on the edge of the bed,
plucking at her sleeve again.
They ate in virtual silence, sitting side by side on the couch without touching. Vala sat on the couch in his grey slacks and short sleeved t-shirt, her socks mismatched and the ends of her hair still wet. Daniel had changed into a similar outfit but couldn’t tell if his socks matched or not – they were virtually all the same standard issue black. When Vala attempted to put her feet up on the coffee table in front and found it a little too far, Daniel hooked his foot under it and pulled the table to within her legs’ reach.
“Thanks.”
“It’s fine. Do you like the pizza?”
She nodded.
Daniel turned his back
while she got changed, his car keys in his pocket anyway. When he heard her
wince in pain he almost turned.
“It’s okay,” Vala said
quietly, “You can look.”
She was wearing those
grey slacks and one of her chopped up black vest tops. Daniel took a few long
strides to her side and put a hand around her wrist, gentler than when they’d
sat against the door because she seemed to have no interest in fighting or
hiding. Daniel didn’t want to think what that simple admission that she
wouldn’t sleep had cost her, the almost meek submission to his care scaring him
more than anything else.
Daniel lifted the
light green jumper she’d nodded her assent to as she sat down on the edge of
the bed. At his nod, she held up her arms and he carefully slipped it over her
shoulders, being as careful as he could be of her raw knuckles. She sat very
still, trembling only very slightly and her eyes blank as he gently pulled her
hair out from under the neck of the jumper and then cautiously undid the
ponytail, her long hair falling around her face.
Worried, Daniel lifted a bottle of water and a glass, pouring some out and lifting a cloth. She shook her head when he offered her a drink, eyes distant. Daniel wasn’t sure when the tense arguing had stopped and the catatonia had set in.
“Daniel?”
“Yes?”
She paused.
“What is it?” He asked, turning to her and meeting her eyes as she flushed slightly.
“Do you have ice cream?”
“I’m going to clean
these,” Daniel said softly, brushing her hair from her face as she nodded
numbly and seeing a streak of blood much like the remains of a smudged
handprint below her ear. He soaked the cloth in the water and put his index and
middle fingers below her chin, lifting her distant eyes to his as he wiped off
the blood and dirt from her face. She didn’t react to the coolness of the water
on her warm skin.
She didn’t react when
he drew the cloth as quickly and gently across her knuckles as he could, and he
knew that had to have stung. She simply blinked languidly, eyes bright, and
looked on into the distance.
“I think so. It’ll just be plain vanilla, though,” Daniel answered with a small smile, getting up, glad to know something hadn’t changed. When Sam was upset it was chocolate, for him, bizarrely, toast with a sinful amount of butter. They all had their signal foods – Jack was pie, Teal’c was black tea and Mitchell would never admit that his cup with a lid held hot chocolate, but they all smelt it.
“Nothing plain about vanilla,” She said quietly, looking at him with a ghost of a smile that he returned before going to the kitchen.
Vala was still sitting
on the edge of the bed, putting her feet into slip-ons that would serve to get
to the car park and from there to his apartment. Her hair fell in folds across
her face again and Daniel reached across to her dresser for a brush. She looked
at him in mild surprise when he began to draw it through her long hair,
smoothing it so it lay against her back.
“It was part of the
morning on
She nodded against the
brush, smiling sadly. “Was it a custom?”
Daniel frowned
slightly, thinking about it. “No, not really. She said it just … made her feel
settled. It had that effect on me as well.”
She nodded again,
closing her eyes with a smile and let him finish getting the tangles out of her
hair.
“It doesn’t matter,” Daniel answered her questioning look as he sat the open tub on the couch between them. Vala took the offered spoon and changed position to sit with one knee drawn up to her chest and the other leg hanging off of the couch. Daniel leaned one knee against the back of the couch and folded the other under him, taking the first spoonful of ice cream from the tub. A moment later, Vala joined in.
She took a deep,
shuddering breath and looked at Daniel, eyes raw and bright as she fixed the
collar of her long coat. He put a hand on the small of her back, nodding and
shifting the hold-all to the other shoulder so it wasn’t between them. He
opened the door and looked at her with what he hoped was encouragement.
They walked through
the complex at a brisk but not rushing pace. Daniel unconsciously put himself
between Vala and anyone they passed or found a way to touch her shoulder or
hand with his when they came across people. For once, no one looked at them
together in amusement, the normal reaction – as if they knew something they
didn’t. Somehow, the pity, sympathy and even apprehension directed towards Vala
was worse and he’d have taken the innuendo without complaint. As they neared
the elevator, her forcibly polite smile became more strained and her fists
clenched, the slight shaking he’d noticed earlier becoming more pronounced.
She sat the spoon in the tub with a small smile of defeat and looked at him.
“I can’t eat anymore. I really can’t.”
He nodded, sat his own spoon in the tub and looked at her for a long moment of silence.
“I’ll take the couch if you want to get some sleep,” she said quietly.
“Will you sleep?”
She looked around the apartment, took a slow breath and looked at him. “I’m not sure. I’d like to try, though.”
They got in the
elevator, which was mercifully empty, and Vala instantly leaned back against
the wall, putting her head back and closing her eyes with an explosive exhaling
of a long-held breath.
Daniel hesitantly
wrapped his hand around hers and squeezed it.
“Not far now.”
She nodded, eyes still closed and expression pained.
He offered to take the couch but she politely declined. Daniel wasn’t sure what shook him up more – her turning down the bed or her missing the blatant opportunities for innuendo.
She raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment on the bed set as they spread it over the couch and tucked it into the corners, given it was pink and lacy.
“Sam gave me it when I descended a few years ago and had to get most mundane things all over again,” He felt the need to explain. “Her brother’s wife had given her it and she’d never used it.”
Her ironic glance and smile stated louder than words that she didn’t wonder why.
They felt the cool air
hit them as they walked through the silent and harshly lit car park to his car.
The noise of the alarm de-activating seemed to rend the air. Daniel put her bag
in the back as she opened the passenger door and sat down, not questioning that
he should drive even though she could drive circles around him in either a car
or a spaceship should she choose to.
She’d picked up
driving disgustingly quickly. He still remembered the smug look on her face
when she’d been given her license and turned to a disgruntled him to say,
“What? A girl can fly a cargo ship or a ha’tak and you think this bucket of
bolts poses a challenge?”
Today, however, she
simply sat down in the passenger seat. As he turned the key in the ignition,
she put a steady hand on his wrist and he met her eyes.
“Thanks.”
He nodded and covered
her hand for a moment, starting the car.
The quilt was an amusingly demonstrative exercise in why they saved the world but didn’t govern it.
“What’s the purpose of this contraption again?” Vala asked, baffled by the duvet cover. “To challenge small children’s spatial awareness?”
“Or make everyone else feel like a small and idiotic child?” Daniel answered, biting back a grin. He felt something in his stomach flip – relief, he told himself – when she grinned in reply. The grin fell away a moment later, but it was something.
After matching up the corners and thinking they’d succeeded only to discover they’d actually put it on inside out, they shared a look and dropped it on the floor in disgust.
“Why is it inside out?” Vala asked curiously, nudging it with a foot as if it were a live snake or unknown substance of potential danger.
“Because we’re tired and silly and they’re pointless?” Daniel answered, nudging her foot with his.
“No,” Vala said, shaking her head with an amused smile, “It’s another one of those quaint earth-isms I don’t understand. Why isn’t it ‘outside in’?” She nudged his foot back.
“No idea,” Daniel responded, nudging her foot again, slightly more insistently. “And ‘quaint’?” He paused and looked at her. “‘Earth-isms?’”
A pillow thumped against his chest and he met her utterly unrepentant eyes. “I had to do that sometime, and you weren’t in restraints at least.”
“I’ll get you an extra blanket,” Daniel said hastily.
“You do that,” she answered sweetly.
They walked up the
stairs to his apartment. She’d been there before, for dinner with the others, movie
nights every now and again, but he’d never simply opened the door and she’d
walked in. There’d always been a fuss or ‘welcome’ of some sort. She kicked off
her shoes in the front hall and followed to the living area, where Daniel sat
her bag by the bedroom door.
They stood on opposite
sides of the breakfast bar that marked off the living room from the kitchen as
the kettle boiled, Daniel slowly teasing her into a discussion of pizza
toppings to lapse into silence after she made the coffee and he called the
pizza place.
“Daniel?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I use your
shower?”
She stood up and leaned on the back of the arm of the chair and he hovered at the door of the living room.
“Vala?”
“Hmm?”
“I should…” He yawned. She smiled slightly, expression taut, and waved in the direction of the bedroom. He caught her hand in mid-air and held it, meeting her eyes.
“You’ll try to sleep?”
She nodded almost shyly.
“Goodnight, Daniel.”
“Goodnight.”
CHAPTER 9: The Anchor Song
Author’s Note: Song title from Bjork again. I make two small references to another fic I’ve written called ‘When the levee breaks’, written as a missing scene/prologue to this based around the episode Memento Mori. Not essential to have read it but if you want to read it, I won’t stop you… ; )
I’m not sure how you lot will take the ending of this, it might be deeply unpopular…uh huh.
“Trying hard to speak
and
Fighting with my weak
hand,
Driven to distraction
All part of the plan…
When something is
broken
And you try to fix it,
Trying to repair it,
Any way you can…
I’m diving off the
deep end,
You become my best
friend.”
- Coldplay, ‘X&Y’
2300
Vala watched him leave, the only awkward moment in a very strange twenty-four hours. Too tired to figure out why it had been awkward, she pulled off her jumper and lay down on the couch. It was a nice jumper, actually. Especially for something Daniel picked out of her clothing. Smart but not exactly perceptive for fashion, even if Sam said he was a lot better nowadays than when he’d taken the ‘academic’ image as far as a fifty year old professor’s wardrobe, apparently.
It was made out of a soft fabric Sam had called ‘cashmere’ when they’d went shopping for more normal Earth clothes than her short skirts and tight shirts. It wasn’t that she minded them, she just sometimes liked to be a little more comfortable. Besides, there wasn’t much Daniel hadn’t seen and she didn’t have to dress up for Cam or Teal’c so movie nights and quiet team nights saw her toning down the wardrobe a little. It was also a hangover from her time in not-quite stasis… as much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, she’d hardened and lost a lot of the vanity that had almost defined her to some. A year previous, she couldn’t have-
Daniel had pretty patterns at the edges of his ceiling, she suddenly noticed, blinking rapidly.
Being underestimated could be irritating rather than
beneficial, she had discovered when she’d set up her bank account in order to
obtain a credit card and have somewhere to keep her salary. Luckily, Sam had
stepped in and quietly reminded the officious little man that she had the
authority of the air force behind her and it would be nice if he stopped trying
to get a better deal out of her in exchange for a pen made in
Good thing Sam had been there … Vala had been intrigued by that pen. A biro, but when you pushed the top down, a little panel in the side revealed a little Earth saying that was supposed to help you become a better person. It had taken a movie night with Chinese take-out at Daniel’s for Vala to understand Sam’s amused “I’ll buy you a box of fortune cookies instead” remark.
She was dimly aware of her brain racing in circles while she stared at the ceiling, going over all the potentially analogous situations in her TV history. She knew she should stare at the ceiling all night, maybe even cry herself to sleep. But she’d been awake too long and the cold feeling in her stomach wouldn’t go away, so Vala simply curled up around the pillow, pressing it to her chest, and fell asleep.
Her mind numb and disconnected, she didn’t know she’d been crying without realising it, tears falling unbidden and unnoticed in the near-dark as her fists curled around the material tightly and her limbs shook.
0136
…Or so the alarm had said a minute or so before Daniel had unplugged it, blaming his lack of ability to sleep on the red light that had never bothered him before. Except, his brutal self-honesty forced him to admit, when Sha’re and Janet died.
He turned over and realised he had miles of bed before he fell out the other side, then questioned why Vala was sleeping on the couch and whether she was staring at the patterns on his ceiling, or whether she’d managed to fall asleep. He didn’t think it was a question of trying to fall asleep so much as her body would have had enough and passed out by now. Or at least he hoped so.
This is stupid. They were adults, and friends. And it wasn’t as if they hadn’t slept in the same bed before. Of course, that had ended with her storming out and ripping her knuckles apart – worrying habit – but that hadn’t been to do with them. And before, after she’d had her memories restored, she’d sat cross-legged on his bed with him and been perfectly comfortable.
It was the same feeling as when Sha’re had died, even though she’d never slept in his bed on Earth except in that vision she’d given him. It was too big. He didn’t need this much space, and she was out there on the couch probably just creating back problems for future years. That was bad for her – his friend – and the team in general. And the Earth. Maybe even the fate of the galaxy.
And how was he supposed to sleep? Knowing she was lying out there in some unknown mental state, maybe awake, maybe sleeping, certainly unhappy? He needed to sleep, too.
Daniel sat on the edge of the bed. He was right, of course. They were friends and perfectly capable of sharing a bed. It just made no sense to have all that wasted space while she curled up on a couch. Even if that couch was sizeable and she was small… But it would still cause muscle issues. She’d have a stiff neck when she woke up. She’d be cranky, they’d argue, it’d be misery all round. And he could hear her brain buzzing, the cogs turning from where he sat. It was keeping him awake.
Walking into the living room quietly in his own grey slacks and sleeveless t-shirt, he felt his carefully built justification fall apart when he found her in a deep sleep and curled up under the blankets around the pillow, the hints of dry salt on her cheeks the remains of tears. Moving after a moment, he retrieved some bedding from his room. Not breathing as he lifted her head gently, he put another pillow under her head. At least she won’t wake up with a stiff neck.
Daniel put the pillow vertically into the corner of the armchair opposite the couch and sat down, thinking he would just wait five minutes to make sure she was sleeping all right. And just because it was cold, he pulled the blanket around himself.
0447
Vala felt a weight on her legs as she turned and drifted towards wakefulness, ever inquisitive. Looking sleepily down at her legs, she saw two other legs lying across them and followed them to find Daniel curled up in a chair opposite her. Something tiredly registered that with a soft smile and an imprecise act of pulling his blanket back across his feet before she fell back asleep.
0745
Daniel heard the alarm in the distance and stumbled blindly from the living room into his bedroom, fumbling through his jeans pocket to find his phone and kill it. Settling for de-activating the alarm, he remembered he didn’t have to work today and fell back onto his bed to fall asleep, somehow illogically thinking that he could now that he’d made sure Vala was sleeping comfortably and that checking on her had had nothing to do with his own inability to sleep.
0853
Vala yawned and turned over onto her stomach to stretch lazily, the way a cat would, before turning over and registering with a dull thud onto the inside-out duvet that she wasn’t in the SGC.
Looking up through her hair, she remembered where she was and why, coming to abrupt and sudden wakefulness. She sat up slowly, getting mastery of her emotions, all of which hit her in a new wave with the memory of her actions.
“What does being capable of this make me?”
Sunlight streamed through the apartment window as she pulled her knees to her chest and leaned against the base of the couch. A few minutes later, when the white noise in her mind had receded somewhat, Vala stood up and padded on silent feet to the bedroom, leaning on the doorframe and smiling softly when she saw Daniel lying flat on his stomach, arms splayed as if he’d fallen off a cliff and landed there, his phone next to his left hand. She tilted her head and noticed his mouth was open as well, and that he’d fallen asleep on top of the covers rather than under them, dragging the other half of the covers around his waist.
She quietly walked to the kitchen, enjoying the still atmosphere in the apartment and wishing more of her days had these moments. Ten minutes later, she was bored and her thoughts were straying too close to territory that needed darkness, not sun-drenched light pine kitchens with toasters and coffee-makers. Now that was a thought.
While the coffee brewed and she assumed Daniel woke up, she took the cordless to the other end of the apartment – the balcony – and rang the SGC.
0859
Daniel lifted his head groggily from the mattress and wondered at the lack of loud noise in his ear or even someone like Vala impatiently prodding him into wakefulness. Then he knew she’d found his weakness. There was no need to prod him when she could simply let the smell of freshly made coffee in the machine drift through the apartment to his nostrils. It was like magpies – or Valas – and shiny things.
“I’m all right,” Her voice floated from the balcony as he
put bread in the toaster and poked at the coffee machine as he somewhat
clumsily put his glasses on. Daniel wondered who she was calling and thought
for a brief second of his phone bill, then decided that so long as it wasn’t
the
Daniel took the minutes the toast and coffee would take to brush his teeth and rake his hands through his hair, somehow not finding it strange but soothing to hear the lull of another human being’s activity in the apartment, despite the reasons that had brought her there.
“A few minor cuts… cleaned and bandaged, no stitches … I’ve eaten pizza, ice cream and I’m about to have breakfast now I think … no, no alcohol … no dizziness … no sleeping pills, thanks… no sickness or nausea … slept about seven and a half hours, yes …I don’t think he’d mind, no…”
Daniel realised as he poured out the coffees that she was on the phone to Dr. Lam rather than Sam.
“Thank you, sir … I appreciate that… Yes, I’ll check in tomorrow morning… Have a good day, sir… Yes, I’ll say hello…”
Vala came back into the kitchen and merely smirked at the fact that he was awake and functioning.
“General Landry?”
She nodded, sitting down on the couch and taking a drink of her coffee. “Sam says hello, she’s going through to the Renasri today. Dr. Lam is going to drop around later to get a blood sample and have a quick look at me … General Landry says I can have as long as I need, since all that’s really happening is research on the Renasri shield technology and we’re not much use there.” She smiled at him and shrugged. “He also says ‘hello.’”
Daniel raised his eyebrows over his coffee returned the shrug with a dry smile.
1230
After lunch, Dr. Lam arrived with a little med kit and pronounced Vala uninjured but exhausted, entrusting her entirely straight-faced to Daniel’s care for several days of enforced rest and taking the obligatory blood sample.
After Carolyn left, Daniel decided that they’d had enough TV for the day and lifted a canvas screen that Vala had assumed had been for clothes storage or suchlike. It turned out to be a bookcase filled to capacity. She turned and looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
“The screen keeps the sunlight from fading the spines…” Daniel trailed off when she smiled dryly. “What?”
“I thought your office was bad,” Vala remarked, looking at the shelves.
“You’re welcome to read any of them, they’re mostly history books from years ago,” Daniel said, ignoring her but for a quick roll of his eyes. English written language was yet another thing she’d picked up in a sickeningly short amount of time and with seemingly little effort.
“Actually,” Vala replied, pushing her sleeves up and sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the bookcase, “I think I’m going to tidy it. Alphabetical by author is okay with you?”
“What? But-?” Daniel’s eyebrows came together with an almost audible click and her raised hand only served to quieten, not mute his sputtering.
“It’s a mess, Daniel,” She said with implacable logic and a distracted expression, “How am I – never mind you – meant to find anything to read in a mess like this?”
“Most of these I’ve had since college,” Daniel muttered.
“And that matters why?” She smiled at him brightly.
“You might get bored,” Daniel countered somewhat lamely, “Most of them are historical texts and so on. Or throw away ones I like.”
Vala gave him an innocent look. “You’re always telling me history is interesting. And I’m not tidying them out, Daniel, just putting them in some …” She looked at the bookcase disparagingly “… Any form of order. Don’t you have translations or… crosswords to do that are more important than hovering here and irritating me?”
He knew a dismissal when he heard it. Getting his translation work from his bag and his laptop while muttering darkly, he spread them out on the bed and lay out on his stomach, thinking that at least he could supervise while she went through the book case.
1429
She wasn’t talking. Or singing. Or fidgeting. It was entirely disconcerting. Daniel was finding it difficult to concentrate on doing his work and getting agitated because she was being so annoyingly quiet. It was maddening. And it was making him start to fidget. She’d baffled him when she’d gotten her own laptop out and seemed to be typing into it every now and again. He kept looking over, hoping secretly to catch her watching him, or balling up paper to throw at him, or something. But she was just sitting in the corner happily putting the books in order and flipping through them, setting one or two at the side. Or at least contentedly. Very disconcerting.
1440
Vala gasped audibly and Daniel scowled at her for no reason, both delighted and further annoyed when she burst out laughing at his reaction. She held up a leather-bound book and pointed to the other volume of it.
“Do you know how much this is worth, Daniel?”
“You’ve been valuing my books?” He asked, surprised.
“Only the interesting ones,” She responded, unfazed, “I do Ebay trading anyway, and I was curious. I wasn’t planning to sell them or anything.”
He stared at her as she kept talking, caught somewhere between disbelief and being glad that she was talking fast enough to confuse him again.
“Most of them aren’t worth that much, and there’s none extreme enough that someone who owns the amount of artefacts you do would really be interested in selling and they’ll appreciate in a few years if you keep a hold of them…”
1635
“Daniel?”
He looked up, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Hmm?”
“I think I’m done. Do you want to see?”
He put on his glasses and sat up, walking over to stand beside her and was pleasantly surprised. “I can find things,” He said quietly, tilting his head and scanning the titles, not about to admit that half the thoughts in his head were ‘that’s where that went…’
He expected a smart comment, given he’d just conceded defeat on something, but was sharply reminded of why she was taking sanctuary at the apartment he barely used rather than the too-relevant SGC by her quiet, subdued smile and the way she sat cross-legged on the floor to look through a small pile of books. He sat beside her and touched her wrist briefly, causing her to look up a little startled.
“Thanks,” He said, smiling, “I appreciate you doing that.” She shrugged it off and looked at the book she was holding. “What are these ones?”
“They looked interesting enough to read,” She explained succinctly. Tilting his head to see the titles, Daniel was surprised yet again by her insightful nature – she’d chosen half the most important books ever written and half of the most interesting. At least by his standards. Which, he admitted, might not make her insightful … just similar. He wasn’t sure which idea was the stranger. She looked at him, “Can you tell me if they’re worth reading?”
Daniel went through the little pile and took a few out. “These ones are the more interesting reads.”
She held up one of his rejects – a battered copy of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle – and asked why he’d taken it out. “It’s the Doomsday book! Exciting… surely.”
He smiled and shook his head. “About as exciting as census records come, I guess.”
She dropped it like a hot potato.
“Now this one,” He said, holding up one he was sure she’d like, “Is full of racy details and political intrigue. The author ordered it only be published when he was dead and wrote it in secret.”
“The Secret History … I’ve read a book by that title,” Vala mused, “But that was by Donna Tartt, not Proco-”
“Procopius,” Daniel nodded, confirming her hesitant pronunciation.
“Procopius,” She repeated softly under her breath, getting the intonation. She lifted another one of his choices, “The letters of Heloise and Abelard…”
“Tragic twelfth century romance between a nun and a castrated preacher,” Daniel filled in. Her eyes brightened and she put it on the ‘definitely’ pile.
2116
Daniel couldn’t believe how grateful he was to his younger self for taking that medieval history course on a whim. It turned out Vala was a sucker for stories, and the middle ages were just full of them.
They’d spent the rest of the day reading or translating, Vala sitting on the bed cross-legged, against the headboard or on her stomach next to him. Daniel wasn’t sure when it had happened, but her close proximity no longer annoyed him in the slightest. And there was something disturbingly familiar in the way she attacked the books he’d recommended, having to be prodded into attentiveness when he needed an obscure piece of goa’uld slang translated or an opinion on the prevailing meaning of a word and even then swatting his hand away occasionally if he dared interrupt at an exciting part.
Normally he would have just translated it approximately, but a few months before he’d gotten over his pride and seen the advantage to having someone with access to the goa’uld genetic memory hanging around in his office so much. Besides, if she was going to hang around she may as well earn the floor space in his lab.
Deciding that they were in no way having pizza two nights running, Daniel had left her curled up and engrossed in the saga of Tristan, eyes bright and mouth slightly open, to dig through his cupboards for food and came up with a fairly simple pasta.
“I could’ve helped, you know.”
He jumped when he heard her voice behind him, drawn by the smell of food and standing in the doorway. He smiled softly and poured them glasses of orange juice, “I like to cook, and you seemed to be enjoying the book, so...”
She nodded in approval as she sat on the couch, looking at him curiously. “Do you ever use the table?”
“With guests mostly, but not when it’s just me,” Daniel answered quietly, “But we can use it if you want.”
Vala shook her head and sank a little lower into the couch. “It’s okay. I’m fine here.”
2237
Vala stood, beginning to lift the covers and blankets from the side of the couch to put together the makeshift bed again. Daniel lifted the blanket to help, having dumped the dishes in the dishwasher, and looked at it as Vala put a hand to the back of her neck.
“You know,” He said with a small smile, “There’s more than enough room for you not to wake up with a sore neck.”
Vala lifted the blanket with an impassive expression. When she passed the doorway to the bedroom, she kicked her bag inside in front of her, and Daniel dropped his head to conceal a smile he would never admit to.
0025
Vala gave in and rolled over to lie on her back rather than in a ball scrunched at the side of the bed, folding her hands over her abdomen and staring at the ceiling.
“This is why I offered to sleep on the couch,” She said, quietly amused in the darkness.
He rolled over from his position at the opposite side of the bed to lie on his back next to her, about a foot of material between them. “This is why I offered to share the bed with you,” He replied, voice laced with a soft irony.
“I fell asleep yesterday,” She commented lightly.
“Yesterday was long. You could barely stand by the time we called it a day.”
“You noticed that?”
A pause.
Vala laughed, smiling. “Of course you did.”
“Oh, I nodded,” Daniel explained quickly.
“It’s dark, and we’re staring at the ceiling,” Vala replied logically.
“Not anymore,” Daniel answered triumphantly, turning onto his side to face her.
Vala also turned to face him, the outline of his jaw now visible in relief with the light drifting in from outside.
“That’s my brand of logic,” She teased quietly, no bite in her voice.
He nodded, then tilted his head. “Did you see that?”
She nodded and laughed quietly, taking a ragged breath and putting a shaking hand on his cheek, still nodding. “I did well today.”
Daniel covered her hand with his and nodded, “You even found cultural distractions.”
She laughed again, but Daniel could hear that edge back in her voice as she turned back to face the ceiling and her hand slipped away from his.
“What am I doing?”
She said it at a level barely above a whisper. Daniel reached out a tentative hand and brushed her cheek with his fingertips, feeling it wet. He felt her shaking violently when she grabbed his hand roughly as he pulled it back. Moving instinctively in the dark, Daniel sat up and pulled her to rest in his lap, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and his forehead against her hair.
Vala froze for a long moment but then Daniel felt a hand on his back and felt her wrap her arms around his waist tightly. A vivid memory overwhelmed him as he made slow circles on her back, trying to soothe her somehow. That Vala had been shell-shocked and numb, still hovering somewhere between living and the fiery alternative. The woman he held in his arms was trembling and crying harshly, her head against his chest and body wracked with sobs.
He wasn’t sure how long they sat like that until her shaking eased, but Vala ended up sitting with her legs hooked over his, her arms tightly around him and her head resting beneath his chin.
Sitting back very slightly, he raised her chin to meet his eyes. “You haven’t been okay for a while now, have you?”
She shook her head, eyes haunted. “I …” She trailed off, and he nodded as she took a deep breath. “It’s just … it’s been hard.”
“The memory thing?” Daniel asked, almost playfully knocking her head against his. She leaned her head against his temple with a nod, voice constrained.
“Some days, everything can trigger a memory of something else,” She closed her eyes, “It can be exhausting.”
“And your own memories are more than enough right now,” Daniel murmured quietly and felt her nod against him. “I didn’t know it’d been so bad.”
She shrugged. “You weren’t meant to. I was handling it.”
He raised his eyebrows sceptically. “I’ve heard that one before and all that got us was a slow week in the infirmary.”
She conceded the point with a tilt of her head. “With Adria…” She swallowed and blinked on saying the name, repeating it with more strength. “With Adria I realised how ruthless I am. It didn’t make me anything, Daniel.” She met his eyes, and he saw a revulsion in them he knew she was directing at herself. “That I could… I was already what I didn’t want to be.”
Daniel nodded and spoke as quietly, “Remember when I said I should have shot Adria when I had the chance?”
She still held his eyes as she nodded slowly.
Daniel smiled somewhat bitterly. “The man I was ten …even five years ago wouldn’t have even considered that. I could say the same about a lot of things.”
She nodded again with a subdued smile, “It’s like rocks.”
“Really?” Daniel asked quietly, amused.
She nodded, “M-hmm. I read one of Teal’c’s National Geographic magazines.”
“Jack gave him those,” He remarked quietly.
“Well, they talk about rocks,” Vala continued, one hand holding herself balanced around his neck, “And they start out as one thing but then they can either get all the rough edges smoothed off by being tumbled down a river…” She trailed off as she looked at him, smiling sadly.
“Either implies an ‘or,’” Daniel prompted a moment later, eyes still on hers.
She broke the eye-contact, ducking her head with an almost bashful smile, “Or they get changed by heat and pressure and become… igneous… rocks.”
“Which one did for us?” Daniel asked as she leaned back slightly, letting him support her rather than hunching over her knees. “The river or the volcano?”
“I don’t know,” She answered, eyes frank and bright, swallowing and looking away but not before touching a light fingertip with amusement to his unshaven chin.
“We’ve got more rough edges, but I can’t help feeling a little lost right now.”
Daniel cupped her cheek with one hand and made her look at him, voice serious. “There’s nothing I can say that I want to that won’t come off like those chick flicks you watch with Sam…” In answer to the question in her eyes he lifted her hand from his waist and intertwined her fingers with his at eye level as she watched his movements, eyes falling on hers with their joined hands between them.
She squeezed his hand with a nod and hesitant smile as their hands fell to rest on top of her knees. Unable to find the words, she bent her knees so she was sitting a little closer to Daniel and put her forehead against his. Taking his other hand from her back, he cupped her cheek again and gently kissed her forehead. Vala lifted their hands from her knee and kissed the back of his. Tilting her head to face his, Daniel kissed her eyelids and leaned his chin on the bend of her nose for a long moment before opening his eyes and meeting hers and brushing his lips against hers.
“You’re sure?” Daniel asked very quietly after she kissed him in reply.
She nodded, brushing her nose against his with closed eyes before opening them to look at him a little nervously. “Just… not too quick? I’m not all here yet and I won’t be for a while yet.”
Daniel nodded, kissing her a little more certainly this time and feeling her smile as he pulled her close to him and rested his head on top of hers.
“Besides,” She said quietly, “This is the only part that’s any different.” She looked up at him with an almost impish grin as she kissed him and murmured, “Definitely heat and pressure.”
CHAPTER 10: Love Will Tear Us Apart
Red clouded over the floor, the room and the sides of his vision.
It was in the voices his mind tuned out and in the air he was breathing too quickly for comfort.
Daniel stared at Vala through the haze. He watched her eyelids blink and then close, watched her fall and heard the dull thud as her body fell to the floor.
"Here's the day
you hoped would never come,
Don't feed me violence, just run with me through rows of speeding cars."
- Imogen Heap
36 hours before:
The metallic sound of the siren was unavoidable.
"Kill it, Daniel!" Vala pleaded.
His hand inched forward another few inches, as far as it could with the material wrapped around his wrist.
"Why's it still doing that?"
"Because you've got the sheet wrapped around my arm and I can't reach it."
"Oh."
Daniel felt the sheet loosen around his arm and tried to turn the alarm clock off. He only managed to hit it off of the bedside table and onto the floor. Grabbing the edge of the bed with his free hand - the other around Vala's waist - he peered at the floor. One alarm clock and one battery lay on the floor, roughly two feet between them.
Daniel smiled slowly as he felt two hands on his side, using him as a lever as he'd used the side of the bed.
"You killed it," an approving voice laced with irony said from somewhere above his head, and he felt her nod. "Maybe we should settle for stunning it next time. Poor thing's only trying to do its job."
"And it's not the clock's fault we can't get out of bed," Daniel replied with a smile and felt the mattress move as she shifted her weight.
"Elbows," he said a moment later, feeling her light weight and smooth skin against his back. "The chin I don't mind so much, but you've got really pointy elbows."
"Daniel," Vala pouted, but stretched out her arms anyway, "You're not supposed to give women negative body images. Especially not the ones naked in your bed."
"Firstly, you have to stop borrowing magazines from Cassie -" he paused, looking at the ceiling. "Don't those magazines have sex tips in them?"
When she didn't reply, he turned his head to find hers balanced on his shoulder and felt her arms slip around his chest.
She smirked and raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, either you or Sam has got to stop Cassie buying those magazines."
Vala rolled her eyes with a smile, "You know your niece is at college now, right?"
"She's still my niece," he protested, trying not to sound defensive, "I get to be over-protective."
Vala shook her head and looked at him, patting his back insistently. "I believe a firstly implies a secondly."
Daniel blinked, trying to remember his train of thought before it took that peculiar and disturbing tangent. "Uh... secondly..." He smirked back, turning over so her out-stretched arms were on either side of his neck and she was balanced on his chest. "Secondly..." Daniel momentarily lost his train of thought again as she shifted to a more comfortable position.
She grinned, brushing her hair behind her ear and tilting her head. "You're going to blame this on coffee, aren't you?"
"Was thinking about it," he answered, smiling and running a hand up her side, "Secondly…” He glared at her as he fought not to grin. “This would be a lot easier if you didn’t wriggle so much.”
“Well,” Vala teased with a smirk, stilling, “If ‘secondly’ is that important, I’ll have a shower while you ponder it.”
Daniel wrapped his arms around her waist and shook his head.
“Why?”
“Because ‘secondly’ was to tell you that the alarm was pointless… we’re not due in to the base for twelve hours.”
“Is that so?” Vala raised an eyebrow. “Am I allowed to wriggle, then?”
Daniel pretended to consider it. Kissing her, he broke off. “We mentioned something about slow a few days ago.”
“Yes, so we did,” Vala replied distractedly as they rolled over in the bed, her hands beginning to wander as he trailed kisses along her collarbone, “But you were wearing that sleeveless t-shirt that shows off your arms yesterday. Slow can wait.”
24 hours before:
Daniel couldn’t believe they hadn’t noticed. He stood in the gate room with the rest of the team, geared up and ready to go to check in on Sam and the Renasri.
The looks Vala seemed to give him unintentionally were searing. Every time they walked through the other’s personal space, Daniel was surprised they didn’t leave scorch marks on their BDUs. And they rarely moved from that personal space.
How could they not notice? Daniel felt like a teenager again, nervous when she looked at him, heart thumping when she walked past, itching to touch her hand when it was within touching distance. Beyond that, they weren’t fighting. Much. Surely they had to notice that at least. Even if it was just to notice the quiet.
But then she asked if he’d remembered to bring his power bars. He’d shot back an ‘of course’ without thinking, automatically following with, “Chocolate one for you included if you’re lucky.”
“Does ‘lucky’ mean ‘quiet’?” she retorted.
“Not always,” Daniel replied with a smile as
“Children! Separate, please!”
He and Vala shared a sheepish look like two children caught
pulling pigtails in the playground.
“Should I be thinking about this as practice?”
“For what, Colonel Mitchell?”
“Children,” he answered, “Specifically toddlers who’ve just learned to talk, rub dough into carpets and whine.”
“I do not know,” Teal’c replied after a moment, raising an eyebrow at Daniel and Vala, still shooting smart remarks between them. “Rya’c did not make so much noise.”
“I dunno,”
“Godspeed, SG-1,” Landry called down via the intercom.
“Ahem, Godspeed, SG-1,” Landry repeated with a little more
emphasis, raising an eyebrow at
He walked across to Daniel and Vala, grabbed the backs of their BDUs and pushed them gently towards the ramp.
“Don’t make me put walkers on you.”
18 hours before:
“So it works like goa’uld technology,” Vala summarised.
Sam nodded, “They have special training schools where people learn to utilise or initiate it the same way we know how to use goa’uld devices. It works on almost the same principle.”
“Hardly surprising,” Daniel put in, “Given their parasitic nature.”
“We have indeed encountered many goa’uld artefacts based on Ancient devices,” Teal’c added.
Sam nodded. “We’ve encountered something almost exactly like this before, actually.”
“The planet the rogue NID almost got wiped out,”
The others either rolled their eyes or shook their head.
Vala simply fixed
I’ll ask Sam later,
Vala looked around. “I thought it was a priest of some description.”
“It is,” Sam answered with a smile.
Vala’s expression became perplexed then she brightened. “The priest is a specially trained goat? Because it would make more sense than a person, I admit, but the training, and what if there were incantations-”
“The priest is a person,” Daniel clarified, “And
“Oh,” she pouted, rounding on him with a hint of a smirk, “I thought we agreed not to confuse me anymore with cultural references I wouldn’t understand.”
It was a plea and the smirk she couldn’t hide when she stepped in said she knew it.
She coughed, not quite covering a laugh. “Working on it. Yes,
still. This is a ridiculously advanced piece of technology,
“Small to shield a whole planet,” Daniel remarked.
“The main component is in the basement of this complex,” Sam replied, “This is just the switchboard I’m working on right now.”
Ten minutes later, check in completed, Daniel seemed to be growing impatient.
“I told you to go to the bathroom before we left,
“I’m not antsy,” came the defensive reply.
“Poor thing’s been here more than two hours and hasn’t scrabbled around in the dust or quizzed the locals on fairy tales,” Vala added, butting her shoulder against his.
She grinned, and Daniel rolled his eyes but sent him a grateful look.
“You think?” he asked quietly, with a grin.
“She was at his house for days,” Sam posited slowly and Teal’c raised an eyebrow.
“And she does seem mighty chipper.”
“Chipper,
“What, she was!”
Sam grinned. “I don’t doubt your accuracy, just your vocabulary.”
“This is revenge for that cowboy thing, isn’t it?”
“Oh, always. That one has legs that run,” Sam shot back with narrowed eyes and a smile. She gestured to the door. “Now you run along. You’ll want to see the Renasri hand to hand skills in action and I have a galaxy to save.”
Complying with dark mutters,
Teal’c raised an eyebrow and walked on.
14 hours before
“I am Tipekme, Matre-Dama of this city,” the stout, middle-aged woman called out to them from the thick of the soup-kitchen. Daniel stared at the hive of activity and felt the heat from the many pans, about to speak when she continued, “And if you’re looking for a guide, I’m busy. Will be all day. I have children to look after once I’m through here.”
“If you could spare a few-”
“I can’t. Out of the question. Now why are you still in my kitchen?”
Vala put a hand on his forearm and pulled him back out into the corridor, a conspiratorial look on her face.
“Let me.”
“You think?”
“She’s a matriarch. She’ll listen to me if I speak.”
He tilted his head and nodded. “Worth a try. Matriarchies always baffled me.”
“Why?” Vala asked, perplexed. “It’s a highly pragmatic notion. Line of inheritance is easier to follow, for one.”
“This is true,” Daniel conceded, “I guess I’m just used to warrior-cultures.”
She patted his arm. “Daniel, honestly. If you can run a kitchen like that at lunch hour, a city isn’t going to be a challenge.”
He grinned helplessly and followed her, marvelling at the way she weaved around the staff in the kitchen while he flattened himself to surfaces. When she spotted him following, she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. He sat on a stool next to a counter and watched.
Vala slipped into the conveyor belt, making her way to the station beside Tipekme and quietly chopping vegetables.
Tipekme looked at her, threw her another basket of vegetables, and then looked again.
“I’ll look after the children if you agree to show my partner around the dusty and decorated parts of town,” Vala offered, “And we’ll be four more hands in the kitchen this lunch time to boot.”
Tipekme looked at the smaller woman. Vala smiled and offered her a platter of what looked to be finely chopped courgettes or at least the Renasri equivalent.
“You help at lunchtime and look after the children tomorrow as well,” Tipekme bargained.
“I’ll help at lunchtime and we’ll both look after the children tomorrow, but Daniel gets the morning to get acquainted with the culture,” Vala rejoined.
The two women met each others’ eyes.
“How do I know you’ll be any use?”
“He’s delivered two babies, I’m fantastic with kids, and we’re both-” she shot Daniel a look that made his palms sweat “ –very good with our hands.”
Tipekme took the deal, tossing them aprons and telling them to get mucked in.
Three exhausting hours later that reminded Daniel unpleasantly of his college part-time job (where the swearing had been in Mandarin), Tipekme looked at him with far less hostility.
She held out a hand for the aprons and was duly given them, telling them to grab a bowl of whatever they wanted and sit with her. “You work, you eat.”
“I like this planet,” Vala muttered to Daniel with a bright grin. “We should try not to get them blown up.”
“That’s the plan.” He held up a piece of flat-bread. “One or two?”
“You two work hard and know when to keep quiet,” Tipekme said without preamble when they sat. “I like that. Are our children’s stories and painted walls really worth it?”
Daniel nodded enthusiastically as Vala smiled indulgently, dipping her flatbread into her soup.
“You’ve both worked kitchens before, haven’t you?”
Vala shared a smile with Daniel and shrugged, “We get around. I’ve done a bit of everything to get by at one point or another.” Her smile softened. “Imagine your kitchen with less staff, more potatoes and no roof and you have my mother’s kitchen.”
When they’d put their bowls in the washing piles – “Another shift takes that pleasant task” – they went outside. Tipekme excused herself for a minute to tell her deputy to ‘deal with evening supper’.
While she was gone, Daniel caught Vala’s hand and pulled her into an alcove out of sight, one hand going around her waist and pulling her against him, the other going to the back of her neck as he kissed her.
She pulled back with a surprised smile and a laugh. “Happy?”
“You’re brilliant, and hit me if I ever say otherwise,” he replied with a grin, “Don’t ever change.”
She kissed him again, putting her hands on either side of his face and leaving him a little breathless before sauntering off to meet Tipekme again.
He watched, stricken a little dumb, as she immersed herself cheerfully in the group of children waiting on them. She knelt down and very seriously introduced herself, watching as they giggled and laughing when a shy little girl who wouldn’t speak reached up to touch her barrette. Unclipping the sparkling hairpin, she handed it over with a shrug. “I have plenty more. You have it.”
“Dr. Jackson, I thought you were interested in seeing the ancient carvings in this temple?”
“Of course, wha-”
Daniel stammered and pushed his glasses back his nose unnecessarily, feeling blood rush to his face and looking at his host in confusion.
Tipekme, his guide, followed where his eyes had been and nodded with understanding. “Maybe we should look at the ones inside the temple? This hot weather is distracting.”
Daniel ducked his head with a grin and followed.
6 hours before:
“They’re disgusting,”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow. “I do not see Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran engaging in any form of inappropriate activity.”
“
“But can you see the way they’re looking at each other? Seriously?”
“Yes,” Sam answered, “The exact way they’ve been looking at each other for months.”
“But it’s different!”
“And thank god,” came the fervent answer, “Any more of that tension and we’d have had to start leaving rooms they were in.”
“But why wouldn’t they tell us?”
“Because they’re allowed private lives?”
“There has to be a way to find out,”
“Well, if that’s all you were after,” Sam remarked, standing and walking over to the pair.
“What’s she doing?”
“I do not believe we will find out by sitting here, Colonel Mitchell.”
“Funny,” he deadpanned, but still almost tripped in his haste to leave the table. Teal’c smirked.
“I got the secondary power couplings hooked into the generator, finally,” Sam reported. “It means we can work on the device without disconnecting it, so we’re not leaving the Renasri defenceless in the event of an Ori attack while we’re working on the remote source.”
“We found out some fascinating things about Renasri culture-”
“‘We?’”
Daniel nodded, sharing a smile with Vala. It didn’t go unnoticed that his hand slipped below the table, and that only one of hers was on it. “Vala collected their myths and legends while I had a look at their carvings.”
“You don’t read Renasri,”
“But their children know all their stories, Cameron,” she retorted, “And I was babysitting while the local matriarch took Daniel on a tour. Simple.”
“Brilliant, actually,” Daniel commented while
She grinned and nodded.
“We saw their hand to hand techniques, were mightily
impressed and even got to join in the fun,”
“They proved to be most skilful warriors,” Teal’c added.
“Did you get your backside kicked?” Sam asked, looking at
“They proved to be most skilful warriors,” Teal’c repeated with a slight smile, inclining his head to Sam, who laughed.
“How about you, Muscles?”
Teal’c looked at Vala and raised an eyebrow.
Vala giggled.
“So, Vala,” Sam put in nonchalantly, “You know how the evacuations have left the Renasri a little short on space… we sharing rooms?”
Oh, she’s brilliant,
He forced himself to look up in the ensuing silence and look between Sam and Vala normally.
“Um…” Daniel began, smiling crookedly at Sam with a wry glare that said he knew what she was playing at.
Vala grinned at him and lifted their joined hands onto the table, covering his with her own other hand and nodding. “I’m sharing with him, I’m afraid.”
“You know it’s only one double in that room,” Sam asked, the real question being one of confirmation.
“Yes,” Daniel put in with renewed certainty, looking from Vala to Sam and lifting his chin, “We know that. We’ll manage.”
“That’s good, then,” Sam replied with a smile.
A beat of silence later, Vala and Sam made eye-contact again. Vala couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing. Sam cracked a moment later, the two women meeting each others’ eyes and dissolving again.
Vala raised a hand and pointed at Sam, “You-”
“I know,” Sam choked out between silent laughter, eyes actually brimming with tears, “I know – I’m sorry-”
“Fine-” Vala waved it off, putting a hand to her side and wiping a hand under her eyes, “It’s-”
They looked at each other and collapsed in laughter again.
Daniel shared a bewildered look with
“She’s your girlfriend,”
Daniel blinked as if surprised, then looked at the still-laughing Vala. Sat next to Sam, she appeared to be speaking in a strange derivative of a part-speech, part-sign, part-telepathic language that involved a lot of ‘I knows’ and nodding. He ran a hand through his hair and returned the grin helplessly.
4 hours before:
Daniel closed the door and leaned against it, letting out a long breath. He opened his eyes to meet Vala’s and her slow smile. She sat down on the edge of the bed and nodded.
He sat down next to her and they shared a smile. “So.”
“So.”
“Sleep.”
“That I can do.”
Vala nodded, cutting off his reply with, “I’m … okay, Daniel. I really am. Not great, even if I had fun today. Even if being with the children wasn’t easy. I’m okay.”
He nodded in reply, wrapping an arm around her and feeling her muscles relax against him as she let him take a little of her weight. “I know. And you know that with me you don’t need to-”
“I know,” she cut him off again, eyes bright when she looked at him. “And that’s the best thing.”
“Sleep?”
She nodded, leaning her forehead on his. “Sleep.”
1 hour before:
The hammering on the door was impossible to ignore.
“Guessing we can’t kill it or stun it this time?” Vala asked groggily, coming to against Daniel’s shoulder.
“Jackson, Vala, get up or I’m coming in!”
“Stunning too mild,” Daniel muttered to Vala, turning over and sitting up.
“Come in then,” Vala called to the voice on the other side of the door, sitting up with a lazy smile at Daniel.
“Luring into an ambush,” Daniel said in a low voice, “You’re smart.”
“Seriously?”
Vala could almost see his eyebrows rising.
“Yes, Mitchell, seriously,” Daniel shouted back, “We were sleeping.”
“With clothes on and everything,” Vala added with a smirk.
The door opened a crack, and Mitchell leaned his head in, grimacing as if not sure what to expect. He saw them sitting side by side on the edge of the bed, lacing up their boots and let out a sigh of relief.
“You’ve got to get over that,” Vala remarked, “Or else it’s going to be very inconvenient when we have to camp out.”
Daniel grinned. “She’s right. What’ll you do, knock on a tree?”
“What’s the emergency?” Vala asked, standing and becoming serious.
“Not sure,” Mitchell responded, holding the door open for her but then letting go when Daniel got there. Daniel rolled his eyes as he closed it behind them. “Sam declared one, I rounded up the band.”
“Am I a backing singer this time?” Vala quipped, her fast pace belying her flippancy.
Daniel smiled and put a hand on the small of her back for a moment.
“You can play tambourine,”
“Like those marching bands have?”
“I was thinking tin monkeys.”
Daniel winced at the ‘thwack!’ sound when she slapped his arm.
“Don’t think you’re not buying me a tin monkey for that.”
They rounded the corner into the lab as he rubbed his arm. “So, Sam, emergency?”
“Not sure yet,” the blonde answered, “But something’s not right. Daniel, this looks like a display panel.”
“Looks like?” Daniel repeated, stepping forward.
“Well, it was a blank tile until about ten minutes ago,” Sam answered, showing him the screen. “One of the devices in my room activated, so I came here and found this. It’s Ancient, right?”
He nodded, running a fingertip along the lines of text, finger hovering in the air above the display. “It’s a radar…” he began slowly, tilting his head. “It’s saying there’s a ship in the system… it’s … it’s confused?”
“It’s sentient?”
“No,” Daniel replied distractedly, “It’s a system, and it’s not sure which category to put it in. It’s hovering between Ancient and unkno-”
Daniel realised what he was saying at the same time as the others.
“That would suggest an Ori vessel,” Teal’c summarised bluntly.
“Are you sure?”
They shared a glance, Sam checking the screen again. “Does it give an options menu or is it a read-out?”
“Options,” Daniel pointed to the item on the left of the screen. “Schematic?”
Sam nodded.
The rough sketch of an Ori ship didn’t need an explanation.
Vala took a breath. “How long?”
“One hour before they get here.”
“This is months away from operational,” Sam said brutally.
“
“Tipekme!” Vala shouted over the din of the evacuation to underground caves. She fought her way through the masses of people. “You got the message?”
“That’s why we’re evacuating, yes, Lasorn, get that box to the back!”
Tipekme was remarkably calm for someone whose planet faced Ori attack.
“The go-” Vala silently cursed
“Still hours away,” Tipekme replied. “You should get your people underground with us!”
Vala made her way to the older woman’s side and grabbed her arm. “That won’t stop them. You know that.”
“It’s a chance.” Tipekme shook her off and continued to direct the evacuation before rounding on her. “We have to take the chance it might.”
Stargate. The
thought reverberated through Vala’s mind but she stilled it on her tongue. Too many. A whole planet of people, too many
too far from the gate for it to be any use.
Partial evacuation.
What kind of choice is that?
Vala felt as if time had slowed down, staring at the crowds of men, women and children making their way to the underground shelters – the shelters not far enough underground or big enough to shield an entire planet from an Ori blast.
“Get your people to the shelter or go through the gate,”
Tipekme repeated, shaking her out of her reverie. Vala nodded, putting a hand
on her forearm, and made her way back to
“What’d she say?”
“They’ll be here soon.”
30 minutes before
“The Renasri are evacuating as best they can all over,”
“None,” Sam replied, looking between the display and
Daniel rubbed his eyes and looked up. “The priest?”
“Should be on their way,”
“She was right behind us, I swear. I notice when she goes quiet, it’s a pleasant change.”
Teal’c looked at Daniel. “I also believed Vala Mal Doran to be accompanying us.”
Daniel activated his radio. “Vala, it’s Daniel, come in.”
No answer came.
“Vala, it’s Daniel. Please come in.”
Sam shot Teal’c a worried glance.
Daniel heard
“So it works like
goa’uld technology.”
Daniel swore, plumbing the depths of the obscure curses she’d taught him.
“Vala, I know what you’re doing. Please don’t do this, you idiot, do you know what it’ll do to you?”
Sam and the others shared panicked looks of understanding while Daniel didn’t even pretend to keep the emotion out of his voice, running from the lab to the basement as fast as his legs would carry him.
“You told me to hit
you if you called me anything less than brilliant.”
“Vala!” Daniel stopped, grabbing a corner to slow his pace. “This is stupid.”
“So is watching a
whole planet be wiped out by the Ori.”
He shared a look of indignation with the others, taking a deep breath and running again.
“I’m the best one for
this- oh, there you are. I’m activating the outer shield so you can’t stop me.”
Daniel ran into an energy wall and punched it with the side of his fist in frustration. He saw Vala step up to the other side of it and smile crookedly.
“Why are you doing this?”
“I’m being practical, Daniel. Someone has to.”
“The Renasri priest will be here anyway.”
“I lied.”
He glared at her.
“Not to you, to them. I try not to lie to you anymore.”
“That’s not helping me now.”
“Look,” she tried to reason, “I have the greater experience with goa’uld technology, and Sam has to figure this out from the outside. It’ll drain me, not kill me, so you have time.” She put a hand against his on the force shield. “I don’t intend to be a martyr, Daniel.”
He looked at her and held her gaze, seemingly against her will.
“Adria wasn’t your fault,” Daniel said softly. She winced as if he’d struck her and he knew he was at the real reason. “You deserve better than this.”
She looked away and back. “And so does this planet. So do all of you. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same if you could,” Vala shot back.
He had no argument for that.
So instead, he watched her step away with a lingering look, take a knife from her thigh and put a cut into both her palms with a hiss of pain. As she raised her hands to the device, she looked at them and smiled.
“Vala!” Daniel shouted, and she hesitated. “I-”
“I know,” she met his eyes, her own bright. “Me too, and I know.”
He saw the red on the palms of her hands and watched her breathe deeply before placing them on the panel.
He saw the red of her blood run down the side of the panel in a thin line.
Red clouded over the floor, the room and the sides of his vision.
It was in the voices his mind tuned out and in the air he was breathing too quickly for comfort.
Daniel stared at Vala through the haze. He watched her eyelids blink and then close, watched her fall and heard the dull thud as her body fell to the floor.
CHAPTER 11: From Beside a Shattered Glass
Author’s Note: I steal some lines from The Quest, Part Two, since I’m running a vaguely similar but AU timeline. However, should you not have seen TQ2, this will be totally irrelevant and you’ll have no idea which they are.
Daniel sat at the edge of the force shield, knowing there was nothing he could do but sitting there anyway. She lay on the ground inside, shaking very slightly and unconscious. Daniel was glad of the tremors if only because they proved she was still alive, even if it proved what he had thought. Vala couldn’t hide her fear or her discomfort when she gave into sleep; she never could. He felt a hot cup of coffee pressed into his hand.
“We could find another way, you know,” Mitchell said as he sat next to him.
Daniel didn’t reply, taking a sip of his coffee with a grateful nod.
“You could tell her she doesn’t have to do this,” Mitchell continued. “She’d listen to you.”
“Again?” Daniel ducked his head with a smile. “What team have you been on?” When Mitchell nodded in a gesture eerily similar to one of Jack’s, Daniel added, “Besides, we need this. I know that… She knows that. And she wouldn’t forgive me for ignoring it. You heard her.”
Mitchell sighed and took a drink from his own cup, both men’s eyes on the prone figure inside the shield. It didn’t reassure either of them that the shield tinged everything within it a faint red colour, including the clotted cuts on her palms. “I didn’t actually mean just on the team,” he said with a smile. “She cares about what you think. She stuck around because of it in the first place. And we all know it’s more than … you know. For all you’re both attractive people, and she’s-”
Mitchell stopped and looked at Daniel. “I should just stop digging?”
Daniel nodded with a grin.
“Where was I?”
“She listens to me, apparently.”
“Yeah,” Mitchell nodded, “She does.”
“Evidence to the contrary?” he replied dryly.
“I didn’t say she does what she’s told,” Mitchell shrugged, “I just said that she at least listens to what you say.” They sat in silence for a few minutes before Mitchell spoke again in a more tentative tone of voice. “If I could have done it, I would have. I hate just … just watching. You know?”
“Yeah,” Daniel replied wearily. “So would we all. She thought of it first this time, though.” He looked at Mitchell. “I’m not putting you down. But you know the hard part of all this isn’t risking your own life,” he looked at Vala again, voice soft. “It’s watching your friends and the people you care about take chances with theirs.”
“Friends, huh?” Mitchell remarked after a moment’s silence.
“You are one of us, you know. Don’t let it go to your head,” Daniel retorted, drinking the last of his coffee and standing. “Stay with her while I go to the bathroom?”
After he left, Mitchell turned an amused glance towards Vala. “I wasn’t actually talking about myself, Sleeping Beauty, but I’m thinking he knew that.”
* * * *
Daniel sat in the little camp they’d made beside the force field as Teal’c meditated nearby. Mitchell had gone into his sleeping bag earlier. Daniel sat and watched her faintly shivering form in the now dimmed light, feeling Sam sit near him, leaning a little on her upper arm for a moment.
“Progress?” he asked hopefully.
“None. I know how to turn it off but not how to power it without actually using someone,” Sam said. Daniel bit off a harsh word when he saw the dark circles under her eyes and the yawn she failed to stop, smiling a little shyly at his scrutiny. “I’m just a bit tired.”
“How long have you been working on it?” Daniel asked, worried.
“How long since Vala went in there?” Sam asked wearily.
Daniel had to think about it, unaware of time’s passage in the base of the complex. “About thirty hours or so. I don’t think Vala would want you to push so hard you can barely stand, you know.”
Sam narrowed her eyes and nodded. “You know me and problem solving … I forget little things like time.” Her expression turned sombre and she lowered her voice. “Any change at all?”
Daniel returned his gaze to Vala, shaking his head. “You know the worst thing?”
“What?” Sam asked, also looking at the younger woman.
“I wish I could give her a blanket,” he admitted quietly, voice thick. “She must be freezing.”
Sam stood, putting a hand on his shoulder and hoping he didn’t see her swallow hard.
* * * *
Daniel felt a hand prod him awake and looked up into Sam’s shaken eyes. He came awake instantly, reaching for his glasses. “What is it?”
Sam tried to explain it, but Daniel couldn’t believe it. Running the short distance to the generator, he stopped.
Vala had disappeared.
* * * *
“I'm sorry, I want
more. You can pass that on to your friends as well… I am getting sick of hidden
clues and cryptic messages. And Merlin was right that the Ori are a threat. But
not only to us "lowers," not only to the billions of humans
throughout this galaxy, but to your own existence. Because when this war is
over and every soul that's left alive is praying to the Ori, feeding their need
to be worshipped, you know who they're going to come for next.
I won't pretend to
know what that war will look like, or in what battlefield it will take place,
but then, I won't be alive to see it. I understand that is at the very core of
what you are, of what you believe, but I'm talking about survival here. If you
really are trying to help, then help yourself. I know what we're asking you to
do.”
- Daniel, ‘The Pegasus Project’
Two hours later, Sam was perplexed. Running a hand along the frustratingly still present shield, she turned to the governor.
“You’re sure this isn’t part of the shield’s normal operations?” she asked. The man replied that he was and left her to measuring currents and emissions, all of which were acting as if Vala were still inside the bubble.
“Anything?” Daniel asked from behind her. Sam had to give him points for restraint. He’d seemingly kept himself to only asking every fifteen minutes. She brushed away the harsh thought, knowing it was lack of sleep, at the memory of the slightly dazed but definitely happy look in his eyes at dinner.
She shook her head, explaining what she was doing. From the way his eyes glazed over but he held his tongue, Daniel knew she was just thinking aloud. At his sigh, she looked at him. “I’m doing everything I can,” Sam said softly, “I’m sorry I haven’t got anything yet.”
“I’m the one who should apologise,” a soft female voice said from the doorway. Weapons came up around the room before Daniel called out the order to stand down.
Walking towards the woman in white, he smiled slightly. Sam, Mitchell and Teal’c moved to his side quickly. “You’ve said that to me before,” Daniel said in greeting.
“I have,” she replied with a nod.
Remembering his manners, Daniel turned to his team mates. “Oh, I should… Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter, Teal’c, Colonel Mitchell, this is … which name would you prefer?” He turned back to the woman in white.
She smiled again with that almost unnerving calm. “Ghannis La’al will be fine. I think your friends are beyond needing to know the myth to comprehend the reality.”
“
“At one point in your history, yes, I was known as Morgan Le Fey,” Ghannis answered.
“Can you actually hear our thoughts?” Sam asked, eyes widening slightly.
Ghannis laughed. “No.”
A sigh of relief seemed to come from the room in general, which was then hastily covered up by people getting back to whatever it was they had been doing before.
“We didn’t expect to see you again, you know,” Daniel remarked, heart hammering and using all of his diplomatic abilities to keep from asking about Vala immediately and insistently.
She inclined her head. “That is the reason I am here. If we may speak in private?” The ascended woman continued. “I have news of your companion.”
* * * *
Daniel’s heart still raced as they accompanied Ghannis to a private chamber. Why was the shield still in place? Was she alive? Was she alright? Had Vala ascended? Even in his head he wasn’t sure which word should be emphasised, ‘Vala’ or ‘ascended.’
Her voice rang in his head, part shocked and covering with
humour, part genuine. “I think I know why
you came back, Daniel. I don’t think I would’ve liked their company either.”
Thinking back, he’d known at some level they were similar even then.
From what little he knew of his time amongst the ascended beings, he was pretty sure she’d have trouble toeing the line as well. Not helping others in trouble, standing by, just wasn’t in her nature. And as for the purity of spirit requirement… He knew she was good at heart, but she tended to inhabit shades of grey as a way of life. It was something they were forced to in the work they did.
More than anything else, he knew her well enough to know she’d be bored mindless.
But a slippery voice in his head kept raising chilling notions such as … but you ascended, and you’ve killed. You chose ascension over death. What if she did the same? Could you blame her? Could you be unhappy that she’s still out there, alive in some form, even if she’s not with you?
His mind had not answer except for a sharp, piercing pain somewhere in his gut and his breathing quickening.
They had arrived in a chamber that seemed to serve a similar function as the briefing room in the SGC. Sitting, they looked to the ascended being.
“Vala Mal Doran is well,” she said.
“Can you perhaps … elaborate?” Daniel asked, trying to maintain a grip on his temper. “Where is she and why is she there? Is she alive? When is she coming back?”
Mitchell sat forward and added, “Because she is coming back.”
Ghannis smiled as if expecting their questions. She nodded to Mitchell. “First I think I should explain why this remarkable shield is still operational.” To their heated responses, she held up a hand. “It will allow me to explain much.” She sighed and looked at Daniel. “The Others pulled me away when I would have told you to come here. You would have been here sooner had they not … I expected to be punished severely.”
Daniel nodded. “We expected you to be, as well. How does this link to Vala?”
“I made my case,” she continued, smiling and holding up a hand. “And it appears your words to me did not fall on entirely deaf ears. Being as,” Ghannis paused, appearing to change the word she had planned to use, “Bureaucratic as they are, they’ve decided to give you another chance to speak before the council of ascended beings and make your case, with both my fate and their intervention at stake.”
Silence fell.
Daniel looked around. “Okay, when do we leave?”
Ghannis winced. “You misunderstand me. They asked that one of the lowers who had … encouraged my transgressions be called before them. When I said they had made a mistake, they said that they trusted both of you to be eloquent and that it would be a wasted effort to bring you as well, expending energy as it would to hold you in a state of part-ascendancy. We are holding the shield in her absence.”
This time the silence was absolute.
Mitchell broke it, blinking rapidly. “You’re saying that … Vala… Vala … is going to address a council of ascended beings with …”
“The fate of several galaxies,” Sam added.
“The war against the Ori,” Teal’c added, shocked in a more subtle and less obvious way, naturally.
“And the state of your soul,” Daniel finished, looking at the ascended being, “All at stake.”
Ghannis nodded with a soft smile. “Would you like to watch?”
“Would we? Would we really?” Mitchell mused to the others, eyes still wide.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Sam replied slowly.
CHAPTER 12: The Frailty of Words
Author’s Note: Chapter title from song by Explosions In The Sky.
“We absolutely can’t help?” Mitchell checked again.
“We can’t even talk to her?” Daniel said quietly. “She’s smart, she’ll know exactly what’s riding on this.” His own private worry was that Vala was … wherever they’d taken her … and scared about what she was about to do.
“I’m afraid not. It’s a political manoeuvre on the part of the conservatives among us,” Ghannis explained as they sat before what looked like a giant, fuzzy-edged television, only permanently set to soft focus. “They think she’ll make a mess of it and they won’t have to interfere.”
“How much of a chance does she stand?” Daniel asked softly.
Ghannis looked at him. “Honestly? Not much.” She held up a hand to cut off his next question. “The council are going to vote against it, that much is certain. It would be too much like admitting they’ve been wrong all this time … shooting down Merlin, Oma, you, me and others you haven’t heard of… They’ll vote against it.”
The screen came to life, showing a large amphitheatre packed with people. A semi-circle of five heavily robed individuals sat at the front, just before a small platform Daniel assumed Vala would be standing on.
“But see all those people in the audience?” Ghannis continued. “Those are the ones Vala is really talking to. If enough people get behind her to help, even the council won’t be able to stop them. They won’t sanction it – no power, higher or otherwise will make them do that – but they won’t punish it, either. And that opens the door for others to help.”
With a sigh and a brief prayer to a god he couldn’t name if he tried, Daniel turned to the screen as Vala made her way to the front, dressed in a long white skirt and t-shirt he was sure she hadn’t been wearing when she left.
* * * *
Vala made sure of her footing and stood on the platform, trying to channel Daniel-the-diplomat and only hearing ‘Don’t screw this up’ in her own voice, but high-pitched, echoing and repeating.
“You are responsible for the Ori’s discovery of this galaxy, are you not? This galaxy we had protected for millennia,” A sombre looking old man began. Vala felt the bottom fall out of her stomach. Oh, this cannot be good.
* * * *
“They’re tearing her to shreds,” Daniel said heatedly to Sam, who nodded. “They’re twisting everything she’s saying.”
“And that’s when she gets a word in,” Mitchell added with a worried glance. “They’re trampling over her every time she opens her mouth.”
“You know, I never thought I’d say this, but I wish she would use a little bit of that temper of hers about now,” Sam remarked.
* * * *
Vala glanced from one council member to the other, feeling flustered and unsure if they’d even noticed that she’d stopped answering their questions.
Well, that’d be too much like work, she thought, they’re enjoying their game of ‘bash the irresponsible lowers’ too much.
She took a deep, steadying breath. Since when do I get flustered? Wouldn’t Daniel get a kick if he could see me now. Something caught painfully in her throat as she remembered Daniel’s forceful argument with Morgan Le Fey. No, because this matters. He’d be thinking that he should be here. And he’d be right
“If I could speak?” she called out sharply, interrupting one of the council members. When they turned to her as if only just remembering she was there, she met the council woman’s eyes. “It is why you brought me here, after all.” The grey haired woman with the sharp voice inclined her head in a motion that reminded Vala of an Earth animal … an eagle, preparing to strike.
“You accused us of begging for help,” she said, “But we’re not.”
“What else would you call it? The Renasri prayed to us,” a councillor replied, a condescending smile on her face.
Okay, now they’re
making me angry
“Get over yourselves.”
* * * *
Mitchell burst out laughing as Daniel fought to contain a grin. Ghannis was clearly shocked.
“Yes, with respect, Councillor, I did just tell you to get over yourselves,” Vala was saying on the display. Daniel knew the bright grin, but he also knew it didn’t reach her eyes as she nodded. Vala, despite all appearances, was perfectly and completely serious.
Sam was shaking her head with a smile that said it all. If they knew Vala, Daniel thought to
himself, they’d stop her now. If they let
her start talking now, she won’t stop until she’s gotten what she wants, be it
the universe on a platter or roller-skates.
It turned out they didn’t know Vala.
“‘Praying’ is what the Ori make their followers, their privileged worshippers do for six hours a day,” Vala continued, practically throwing the words in their faces. “They call it ‘prostration’ and it hurts your knees and back like hell.”
* * * *
Vala quickly took a breath and continued before another councillor could jump in. She knew she had to keep going, or else she wouldn’t.
“Incidentally, if you don’t, you get burned to death,” She added. “That’s what prayer gets you. Still think the Renasri pray to you?”
Without waiting for an answer she kept going, separating her feet on the podium and forgetting who she was talking to. Or rather, saying everything she’d ever thought about the higher beings but editing out the swear words.
“They don’t. Merlin built this shield technology and taught them how to use it. In the millennia since, they’ve become advanced enough to equal it with their own technology. Believe it or not, like it or not, they don’t think you’re better than they are, and they have no reason to think that. Eminently sensible people.”
Seeing them jump as though she’s slapped them, Vala knew she’d found a weak spot. Now all she had to do was exploit it.
* * * *
Daniel was silently cheering. Okay, you’ve got them on the run, he thought, somehow thinking she would hear his advice. Keep going for that.
“They know what you are,” Vala said slowly and deliberately, almost turning the statement into an insult. “They know where you came from, what form you once had. We’ve seen Alterran technology and whether you like it or not, the Renasris are equal to what you were before you ascended or close enough..”
They watched her turn sharply to the other side of the council. “Oh, I know they don’t have an empire spanning two galaxies. So what? That’s because they choose not to have one. They turn their eyes inward towards advancement and enlightenment. They are everything you preach. It doesn’t change the fact that they are where you were, sitting right on the cusp of mass ascension.”
Daniel slowly smiled, knowing the road she was taking. It wasn’t his, but he was more used to diplomacy. Vala, by her own admission, was more used to hitting things or stealing them. And he was beginning to think that this time she had the right of it.
* * * *
“They pray to you because they know they’re outmatched. They know what the Ori are the same way they know what you are,” Vala continued stridently, trusting her temper to get her through. “They aren’t asking to be handed victory and they aren’t begging. They have more dignity than you have hypocrisy, and boy is that saying something. They’re asking for a chance that to be brutally honest, you owe them and everyone else in this galaxy.”
As she took a breath, a vaguely bemused looking councillor looked at her. “And why is that, exactly?”
“You allow the Ori to interfere,” She almost hissed, feeling her temper rise again as they sparked what really got to her. “You allow them to sneak around the rules while you content yourselves as having done enough. They make Priors of men and sneak their own across your border-” Vala broke off, looking away and swallowing. She took a deep breath and forced herself to continue. “You allow them to make and use people then dispose of them by ways of science they shouldn’t know, and wouldn’t if they didn’t flout your redundant rules.”
* * * *
Daniel saw her chin come up and her eyes blaze as she dressed down the ascended assembly. He knew that her mind was on Adria. Daniel suspected almost everyone knew it as well, considering that although her voice was quieter than at any other time, she could be heard clearly. The amphitheatre was packed and silent, almost sensing that this was the heart of the issue. Suddenly he was glad Vala was the one speaking to them – of them all, she was the one for whom this war was the most personal, the one who’d suffered and lost the most in its waging.
“You allow them to try to make people better,” Vala almost spat. “Not better in themselves and enlightenment, better for their purposes. You’re hypocrites.”
* * * *
“And you’re lazy about it, too,” Vala continued, aware that she was now openly insulting the most powerful gathering ever assembled – the one that could kill her in the blink of an eye or less. More than that, make it so she’d never existed. “You claim to hold free will dear to you and want to defend it for our sakes but when it comes down to it, that’s a pathetic excuse so you don’t have to do anything or sully yourselves with our corporeal mud.”
The councillor who had so frightened Vala at the beginning of the session stood up sharply, face flushed and fists balled. “Explain what gives you-”
“Because it’s truth you need to hear,” Vala cut through his anger quietly and resolutely, meeting his eyes calmly. “You congratulate yourselves on being champions of free will when you don’t have to do anything, but you will not defend it when you’re the only ones who can.”
* * * *
“The Ori force planets
to submission, force people to follow their path,” Vala’s voice was calmer
but throbbing, standing straight and facing them. “They promise what they have no intention of giving, taking away what
those people could have maybe found on their own. And you turn a blind eye. Is
it that you really are more like them than you’ll admit and you don’t want more
people on this higher plane than there already are?”
The silence was absolute in the amphitheatre as Ghannis smiled softly. “She’s just hit them where they’ll feel it most. They’re elitist, but they hate to hear it.”
Daniel smiled, watching the reaction in the crowd. Heads bowed or shook, but he noticed people were suddenly having trouble meeting each other’s eyes. “And the fact that she didn’t shout it only adds to the effect,” Daniel replied and Ghannis nodded.
“Those planets have a
choice,” A councillor said slowly. “They
are not forced to accept the rule of the Ori. Were they more committed to their
paths, they would not yield.”
* * * *
Vala looked at the councillor, trying to process what she’d said. “You can’t believe that,” she replied, honestly shocked. “You all believe this?” She looked around the gathering and saw too many heads nodding for her liking.
She addressed herself to the council and the room. “They burn those who don’t convert. They inflict plagues on them or wipe them out from orbit. They are on a crusade to convert or kill our entire galaxy. It’s not a choice, it’s not even the illusion of a choice,” Vala said slowly, “But it could be.”
* * * *
Now Vala was getting somewhere, Daniel thought exultantly. She had dragged them along on a roller-coaster of a rant, and now she was dragging them into action.
“You claim to champion
free will,” Vala repeated, clenching her fists at her sides. “Prove it. Make the choice the Ori offer a
real one. The Ori take away free will by breaking your rules and changing the battlefield – they bring in
elements we can’t match or else we’d
be among you, not addressing you. Give us the free will you’ve taken from us by
allowing their tricks.”
“And what would you have us do?” A small, grey-haired woman asked sceptically, but sincerely. Ghannis smiled. Daniel took that as a good sign.
* * * *
“Even the odds,” Vala answered instantly, her heart hammering so loudly she couldn’t believe they couldn’t hear it. More than when she’d shouted, more than when she’d lost her temper, because this was the part that mattered. “We’re not asking you to kill them, or to fight them for us … just deal with what we absolutely can’t. The Ori themselves – stop them from sneaking powers across the border to humans that they wouldn’t otherwise have and haven’t earned. Stop them if they try to interfere directly. That’s what you did with Anubis – you only allowed him the powers he would have anyway. We can handle the rest.”
“And as to free will?” The man who’d spoken earlier asked, looking between the others.
“Tell us how to replicate the shields without having to kill someone every time,” Vala replied, knowing this was going to be the most controversial request. As expected, the idea of sharing technological secrets with ‘lowers’ sent whispers around the room as though a stray wind had come in.
Vala raised her voice and addressed them again. “It’s the only way to make the choice a real one. It would allow planets to say no and survive or say yes and follow the Ori.”
* * * *
The councillors stood, looking at each other. “You’ve given us much to deliberate. We will
send an emissary to the world where we found you with our answer. Until then,
we shall continue to hold this shield.”
Daniel let out a long breath as a light flashed next to Ghannis. The ‘screen’ disappeared as Ghannis caught another figure in white and led her to a chair. Seeing who it was, Daniel walked swiftly to Vala’s side and put his fingers under her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You okay?” he asked quietly.
Vala nodded, smiling. “Just a little … exhausted, is all. Food would help. I’d like food. Blue jello, preferably.” Her eyes clouded over. “How’d I do, Mr. Dipl-”
He kissed her, just once and quickly, breathing hard and pulling her forward into a tight hold. He felt her relax against him, faint tremors running through her body and her heart going as fast as his.
They slowly pulled apart, sharing smiles as
“What am I, a soft toy?” Vala asked, smiling with bright eyes as they looked at her, tone soft as she leaned her head on Sam’s shoulder for a moment. She looked at Ghannis. “I definitely wouldn’t like their company all the time.” Ghannis smiled ruefully in return, nodding.
Daniel let out a relieved sigh and sat next to her, hand unashamedly claiming hers. Vala one-upped him and climbed into his lap, hands going around his shoulders and her chin on top of his head. Daniel didn’t protest, slipping his arms around her waist and letting out a sigh of relief.
He raised an eyebrow at Mitchell, who grinned and shook his head ruefully but said nothing.
As the others began to talk, Daniel traced the faint scars on her palms, healed apparently just by being partly, temporarily ascended and happy to not be involved in the discussion just yet. Vala seemed to feel the same way, sitting quietly as her heart gradually found its way back to its normal rhythm.
“Any damage left by the Ori should also be healed,” Ghannis answered the unspoken question in a low voice, standing beside them. “You should be as you were before.” She gave Daniel an amused glance as Vala gently pulled and prodded his hair. “At least physically.”
Vala, eyes wide and serious, nodded to the ascended being slowly.
“So now what?” Mitchell asked.
Ghannis turned to look at him. “Now we wait.”
CHAPTER 13: Sky Fell Over Me
“Do you know what I think?”
“Cam, so help you God if it involves the words ‘public’, ‘displays’ and ‘affection,’” Sam retorted without looking up, breaking her flatbread into pieces.
“Indeed,” Teal’c put in with a warning glance.
He smiled wryly. “I was only going to say that we’re going to have to put tomorrow’s check in back a few hours.”
* * * *
They’d walked back to their room quietly, Vala leaning on him very slightly and him supporting her without mentioning it. They’d barely been away from each other since she’d blinked back onto their plane of existence, sitting next to each other, thighs pressed against the other.
When she closed the door, Vala waited a breath before she launched herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and her slight weight carrying them back to force Daniel to sit on the edge of the bed. Curling around him, she wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders and buried her face in the crook of his neck. Daniel wrapped his own arms just as tightly around her, breathing hard.
“You said I could,” came the accusing voice, muffled by his shoulder. “I wanted to and you said I shouldn’t pretend.”
“Hey,” Daniel said, sitting back and lifting her chin with two fingers, “I meant it.” He held up a hand, shaking slightly. “And I need this.” He smiled, putting a hand on her cheek. “I don’t do so well when I’m not sure if you’re safe.”
“You aren’t angry?” He tilted his head and she continued, “About the shield?”
“I’m angry at the Ori for putting us there, and the goa’uld before that.” Daniel spoke quietly, eyes oblique. He swallowed and tried to smile at her, not really managing. “But I can’t be at you, because you were right. I’d have done the same.”
“You manage to be angry at yourself,” Vala mused, “It’s not rational, but you do.”
“And irrationally,” Daniel retorted with a smile, “I was furious, because you managed to go through with it and because I didn’t stop you, and because I wanted to stop you when it was your decision. But you’re back, and that’s what matters.”
Vala nodded, closing her eyes and playing with the neck of his t-shirt. “And if we’re really going to do this, we’re going to have to deal with not knowing the other one is safe some of the time. We’re in-demand people, saviours of the universe and all that, after all.” She looked up at him, grey eyes piercing as her smile faded and her tone softened. “Do you trust me, Daniel?”
“To take care of yourself?”
“To do what’s right, and try my hardest to come home,” she amended, running a fingertip down his cheek, “Because neither of us can promise the first one.”
He swallowed and met her eyes, “I do. Do you trust me?”
She paused, looking at him and thinking before answering. “I do.”
They met each others eyes and Daniel felt her hands around his neck before he kissed her fiercely, feeling her legs tighten around his waist. Vala’s hands went to the base of his t-shirt, his glasses went on the floor and she wasn’t sure if he pushed off her boots or she did, but they didn’t last long. Falling back onto the bed, neither did much of anything in fast-paced attempts to match as many edges to the other as they could and to forget how to think.
Later, as Daniel collapsed on top of her, breathing as hard as she was, hand entangled in hers and knuckles carving a hollow in the mattress, Vala ran her other hand along the smooth skin of his back.
“Daniel?”
He pushed himself up off her shoulder and looked at her, brushing her hair from her forehead and behind her ear with a soft smile. Her voice didn’t hesitate or falter, and her eyes stayed on his.
“Do you love me?”
He nodded, hand lightly touching the side of her face, her eyelids and her lips. “I do. Do you love me?”
She met his eyes, curling her free hand beneath his jaw to cup his cheek. “I do.”
They paused and Vala blinked, smiling slowly. “I knew that.”
Daniel nodded, kissing her. “I knew too.”
* * * *
In the middle of the night, the sky fell down.
Vala hoped her thoughts were exaggerating, but then realised
that while
She sat up, using Daniel’s shoulder to pull herself upright and feeling him help her by slipping an arm around her waist.
The door opened and Vala grabbed for the sheet as a Southern drawl turned the air blue, pulling the door closed sharply. Vala put her forehead on Daniel’s shoulder as he chuckled.
“I thought you were asleep, damn it!” came a tense shout from outside the door.
“We were!” Daniel called back.
“If you’d asked, we would have told you we weren’t wearing clothes this time!” Vala added, slipping out of the bed and pulling on her clothes. She leaned over to Daniel and asked in a low voice, “Have you seen my-”
He grinned and gave her a t-shirt lying next to his trousers.
Two minutes later, Vala yanked the door open, causing a very
flustered and still pink-cheeked
“Emergency,” Daniel stated as
At the words ‘pretty banging’,
“The Ori are pounding the shield with energy blasts.”
Vala and Daniel shared a worried look before Vala looked at
He nodded.
“So…” Daniel began with a faintly puzzled look. “What can we do?”
Vala smiled. “Other than wait for the Ancient council to get back to us?”
He thought about it. “Eat pie? Play cards?”
Vala and Daniel shared a grin.
“We were thinking of catching up on sleep!” Daniel shot back as he walked down the corridor.
“I don’t want to hear it,
* * * *
She raised an eyebrow. “Did you tell Dan-”
“Don’t ask.”
She shook her head with a grin.
“No, and don’t think about it, either.”
She looked at him with wide eyes.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Those crazy kids?”
“Good taste?”
* * * *
Hammering on the door woke them again.
“That idea you had,” Vala muttered in an irritated voice, “Killing Cameron. I like it.”
Daniel nodded, lightly tapping her arm so he could sit up and slide from the bed. Opening the door in a pair of dark jogging trousers and no glasses, he fixed a glare where he expected Mitchell to be standing.
Teal’c’s throat, unsurprisingly, didn’t react to the glare.
“He’s a chicken and I’m telling him the next time I see him,” Daniel informed him, amused. “What is it, Teal’c?”
“There is news from Earth.”
* * * *
In greens, they walked into Sam’s makeshift lab.
“When did they show up?” Vala asked bluntly, sitting down and accepting the coffee pot, pouring out three cups.
Daniel took the offered cup with a ghost of a smile. “How-”
“Chaos,”
“The phase machine,” Vala interjected, looking at Sam, “Is there enough time?”
Sam shook her head, “The shields were a much more viable option, so we’ve funnelled resources and time here, but neither project is in a position to help.”
“Have they started attacking the planet?” Daniel asked.
“Not yet.” Sam pulled out a notepad. “And we have no idea why. Earth’s surface could be molten by now if they wanted.”
“What about the ships?”
“The Odyssey, maybe,” Sam replied, “It has new technology we received from the Asgard in exchange for open access to Atlantis’ database. But even they’d only be stalling against all four Ori ships.”
“Have they attempted to beam priors to the planet’s surface?” Teal’c enquired.
“Not that we’ve picked up,”
“Or they’re expecting us to use the Ancient outpost and want to see if it can hurt them before they attempt anything,” Daniel posited. “They don’t know there isn’t a ZPM on Earth.”
“Either way, we have a window,” Sam broke in.
“What can we do?” Vala asked. “You said the Renasri shields were months from operational.”
“They are,” Sam replied, picking up the power conduit she’d been working on, “But we still have Merlin’s phase technology. If I can channel even a little of the energy from this shield into the phase amplifier, we can possibly shield Earth.”
“Channel it,”
Sam nodded.
“How?”
“Particle accelerator trained on the Stargate?” Vala guessed, and Sam nodded again.
“Sounds… messy, Sam,” Daniel remarked in the silence.
“Oh, it is,” Sam replied. “It’s very messy, extremely risky and might not work at all, but it’s the best I can come up with on short notice.”
* * * *
6 hours later
“How we doing on your side, Sam?”
“They’ve started. The Odyssey is buying time, but she can’t dodge forever,” Sam replied from her lab in the SGC, “And even with the Asgard shields, our ships are having a hard time in the air. But the Ori haven’t managed to get a blast to the planet yet, so we’re holding our own. I’m almost ready to link up the particle accelerator at this end.”
It was a simple set up.
The intergalactic bridge had been used to bring the Atlantis ZPM to Earth, where General O’Neill now sat, waiting for things to become desperate enough to release the Ancient drones.
The IOA and NORAD ate biscuits, drank tea and harassed all concerned.
“Okay,
Sam and Vala locked eyes then watched the panel of the Ancient device.
They both let out sighs of relief when it began to glow. Vala held up a hand with a bright grin, and Sam lightly slapped her own against it with a matching smile.
“It’s working-” Sam began to say into the radio when a bright light engulfed the desk, the device and the blonde physicist.
Without hesitation, Daniel and Vala threw themselves into the same light.
Everything went white.
CHAPTER 14: Almost What I Know
“Hey!” Daniel couldn’t help but shout angrily, fighting the arms that held him without thinking.
“Daniel!”
“Daniel-”
Vala’s eyes were wide, looking between the two SFs who had roughly grabbed her upper arms, but she didn’t struggle.
The guns in the room were loaded and pointed in their direction.
“What the-” a surprised voice called from the doorway.
Daniel stopped struggling. “Jack!”
“Daniel,” came his cautious reply. He turned to the unrestrained Sam. “Carter, you all right?”
“Why doesn’t Sam get tied up?” Vala muttered irritably as the SFs pushed her forward next to Daniel. “And another point, you only got tied up when you started raising hell.”
“I think they might not like you,” Daniel replied quietly.
The SFs kept pushing. Vala raised her handcuffed hands. “Hey, I’m here! Where else am I supposed to be going?!” She looked at them and raised an eyebrow. “And I hope you gents aren’t getting ideas. I’m terribly sorry but I’d have to disappoint you.”
Daniel concealed a grin, but not very well.
Jack rolled his eyes and walked to in front of her. “You, missy, are going back to Area 51 and your nice, comfy little cell. You’ve only been gone a few months, but I’m sure they kept it just toasty for you.”
Vala rolled her eyes and looked at the ceiling. “Oh, not a chance am I going back to a cage.” She batted her eyelids. “Would it help if I told you I’m really quite good about keeping my hands to myself now?”
He only fixed a look at her, and raised an arm to signal the SFs to take her away. As Vala shot Daniel and Sam slightly panicked looks, Daniel stepped forward and put a hand on Jack’s arm. “Look at her arms, Jack.”
“What does that-?”
“Just look, for crying out loud.”
Jack rolled his eyes and went to the door, roughly jerking Vala around to look at her shoulder. His eyebrows knitted together as he prodded the patch.
“Ow,” Vala said with emphasis.
He prodded it again.
“Ow.”
And again.
Vala jerked her arm away, turning slim wrists and slipping out of the handcuffs with a wince. “Knock it off already!”
Daniel expected her to punch him, not to prod his general stars in reply.
Daniel and Sam shared a look that spoke volumes.
“Vala! Jack! Would you stop?”
They looked at them.
“We’re all in this reality together,” Sam put in with a rueful smile.
Jack looked at Daniel with a sigh and seemed to deflate. “Not our team, then.”
“Not exactly.”
“We destroyed that mirror thing you putzed with, you know.”
“Oh, I know. This is different.”
“Oh. So what’s with her? And why is she wearing that? Last I saw, she was in leather and running into the distance, quickly.” Jack jerked a head to Vala.
Vala shot him a glare and walked over to Daniel, slipping a hand into his and smiling just a little smugly.
“She’s earned it,” was Daniel’s only reply.
Jack’s eyes flitted between their joined hands, their faces and Vala’s team badges.
“You’ll have to tell me about that sometime. Save the world?”
Daniel nodded that away, then shared worried looks with Sam and Vala. “We need to get back to our world, and soon.”
“The reason we were trying to make all of this work,” Sam explained, “Was because our world was under attack from the Ori. We need to get back there.”
“Tell me how and I’ll gladly send you,” Jack answered, “Two more of them in any reality is a disaster waiting for a place to happen.”
Sam’s face paled a little and she held out a hand. “Guys?”
“Oh god,” Daniel realised.
“What?” Vala looked between them, worried.
“Entropic cascade failure,” Sam and Daniel responded simultaneously.
“It was about twenty-four hours before it kicked in,” Sam added.
Jack blinked and looked around the scorched room. “I don’t think that’s a problem for you, Major.”
Sam narrowed her eyes at him. “Major? And why-?”
The three looked around the room.
“Your Sam died in here?” Vala asked.
Jack nodded, subdued. “It seems that way.”
There was a beat of silence.
“We still need to-” Daniel broke off, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Jack, believe me, but we still need to get back to our Earth.”
“I’m not the one you have to convince,” came the answer, “And believe me when I say you’ve got plenty of world-saving hijinks to be had here.”
* * * *
From then on it was meetings, it was interviews; it was not-sleep and the latter was becoming noticeable for Vala.
Daniel was used to getting by on coffee, but Vala needed sleep. And the circles under Sam’s eyes were getting harder to ignore.
It didn’t help that underneath it all, they were all wondering how their Earth was faring. And they couldn’t get away from the idea that it could be molten ash by now.
“To repeat, the Ori are going to attack this planet very soon and the IOA strenuously believes-”
Oh god, even this reality has an IOA and a Woolsey, Daniel couldn’t help but think with trepidation and frustration.
Vala put her head on the briefing table as Jack rolled his eyes.
“Does the IOA have a degree in astrophysics?”
Sam, as the resident expert and therefore target for interrogation, was beginning to get agitated. She stood up, walking to the front of the briefing table and handed Woolsey his sheets of paper roughly.
“I’ve been working on that shield technology with hand-picked assistants for months. I’m telling you it won’t be operational in time to do anything to save your planet. I’m telling you that I can get the phase technology working in time. What about this is complicated?”
Jack coughed. Or rather, badly imitated a cough.
Sam let out a long breath and sat back down.
The meeting went on.
* * * *
Sam slammed the door shut and sat down on the couch next to Vala, who slipped an arm around and pulled her head onto her shoulder.
Sam’s acquiescence caught Daniel off-guard as the blonde smiled softly and sat up after a moment.
“I’m fine. Just feeling a bit hounded.”
Daniel offered her coffee. “Makes sense, you were the one taking the brunt in there.”
“I thought the shields were the more viable?” Vala asked, propping her feet up on the table. “In our reality, I mean?”
“In our reality we thought we had time,” Sam answered tiredly, “And we were aiming to stop the Ori – or slow them – across our galaxy. We can duplicate the Renasri technology, we can’t duplicate Merlin’s phase technology. This government know the Ori are coming. They’re aiming lower.”
“Just the planet?” Daniel put in with an ironic smile.
“Just the planet,” Sam agreed, a haunted look in her eyes.
“They would have used the Ancient outpost,” Daniel responded to the unspoken question hanging in the air. “And the Asgard weapons on the Odyssey.”
Sam met his eyes. “Those scenarios still have a lot of damage. Not to mention the loss of the ZPM keeping Atlantis safe.”
Vala pulled her knees up to her chest. “It’s either that or believe that we’ll be going back to …” She trailed off.
Daniel wrapped his fingers loosely around hers.
“I’m still not sure how to recreate that effect,” Sam admitted. “And we’re on a limited time frame before cascade tremors affect you two.”
“Or they might not,” Daniel rejoined. “You heard the briefing. We’re both very missing in this reality.”
Vala hit him lightly on the arm. “Not that we’re hoping we’re dead or anything.”
They looked at each other at the knock on the door. Daniel opened it to find Jack with what looked to be a mini-hamper.
“Teal’c’s on Dakara, you’re god-knows-where and Carter’s dead,” he stated bluntly. “I’m either having dinner with you or Woolsey.”
Daniel let him in. “We could use some decent food.”
“My reality’s commissary not any better than yours?”
“It’s a universal failing,” Daniel replied.
* * * *
They were admitted to the infirmary the next day for observation, even though there was nothing that could be done for the tremors if they happened.
Sam was tied up in the lab but called every hour.
“How’s the assistant?” Vala asked at two in the afternoon.
“Not as quick as you and talks more,” came the reply.
“That’s possible?”
“Oh yes. But she’s grateful not to be working with Felger anymore, so she chats a lot,” Sam replied.
“Progress?”
“None on going home, but this should be operational if I can get the power.”
“They don’t have ZPMs here,” Vala stated.
“I know. We’re going to have to use every bit of power on this continent. That means plunging this continent into the Dark Ages again except for essential systems and declaring martial law. I don’t know if they’ll go for that.”
After Vala rung off, she slipped from the bed and across to Daniel’s. Taking off his glasses and sitting them on the bedside table, she carefully tucked a bookmark into his ‘light reading’ and put it away. When he shifted in his sleep, she smiled and ran a fingertip down his cheek.
“Would you blame me for feeling a bit stuck?” a soft voice said from the doorway.
Vala put a finger to her lips and sat on her bed, patting the space next to her.
“You just lost your Sam, and your Daniel is missing. If Daniel has tremors, you have to watch him die. If he doesn’t, it means yours already has.”
He nodded, letting out a sigh.
“If we go back, you have to deal with losing Sam all over again,” Vala continued softly.
“Can’t grieve for a friend who’s still right in front of you,” Jack remarked and looked at her. “Have either of you-?”
“No,” Vala answered, wondering whether that should be ‘not yet’. “All we can do is wait.”
He let out another sigh. “I went to Dakara to tell Teal’c this morning. About you three and Carter.”
“And?”
“And he was Teal’c,” Jack’s smile was ironic. “You know how he is.”
Vala smiled in reply. “I do.”
“And that’s another weird thing.” Vala’s eyes followed the finger her was wagging in her direction, not his gaze. “You, SG-1. You and Daniel. You not thieving our ships, stabbing us in the back and kicking our asses.”
Vala raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, now I’m convinced you know Teal’c.”
She shrugged. “I like being useful. I like being paid regularly.”
He looked at her.
“And Earth is home.”
“That doesn’t explain….” He looked between her and the sleeping Daniel. “You two.”
“It begins to,” she disagreed and then shrugged again. “But not much does, and that’s fine by us.”
CHAPTER 15: Losing the World
“I think I lost the
world, it wasn’t where I last left it.”
- gecko3, ‘Losing the World’
Jack was avoiding him, and Daniel couldn’t blame him for it.
It’d been four days since the explosion in Major Carter’s lab, since Sam, Vala and Daniel had blinked into existence in Jack’s reality, and neither Daniel nor Vala had felt the effects of entropic cascade failure.
Sam had spent the time figuring out what had brought them there. Daniel didn’t understand the specifics other than their Carter had been working on something power-source related, and it had reacted against what Sam had been doing and brought them there. Million to one chance, as always.
The office Daniel stood in was his, but with a few subtle differences. The picture of Sha’re was the same, the picture next to it different. In his reality, that space was given to two pictures; one of Sam, Jack, himself and Teal’c at the cabin and one of the five of them, the new SG-1, at a restaurant to celebrate Vala’s inclusion on the team. He picked up the photo in this reality. It was frightening, how it was the same frame around something so very different.
“Scary, isn’t it?”
He looked at Sam, standing in the doorway, and nodded.
She sat coffee on his desk, sitting forward on the stool and threading her hands through her hair for a long moment.
“You’re exhausted,” Daniel stated bluntly, sitting down opposite her.
“Remember when we were looking for Merlin’s weapon? How you couldn’t sleep for knowing there was more you could do?”
He ducked his head with a grin, acknowledging the point.
Sam sat up and looked around. “Vala?”
“She was sleeping when I left our quarters,” Daniel answered, pouring out the coffee. “I didn’t want to wake her. It’s been a long week.”
Sam nodded.
Daniel hesitated on his next question, because he knew it wasn’t something he actually needed to ask. “You and Vala-”
“You’re as much my friend as you ever were,” Sam cut in with
a smile. “It’s just nice for a girl to have someone to play with, too.
Especially after
“It’s a good work out,” Daniel retorted.
“Oh no, that’s how it started,” she shot back. “One game,
three times a week. But what I don’t understand is how beer at
“It’s team bonding.” He resisted the urge to stick his tongue out. “And you know I can’t drink more than a couple of beers.”
Sam grinned as she stirred her coffee and nodded. “That’s what Vala and I do; team bonding. Except we don’t bother pretending it’s a work out.” She shot him a grin. “We have better things to do.”
He grinned, thinking that Vala had begun to infiltrate Sam’s vocabulary. “Pedicures, mochachinos and the Gap?”
Sam looked at him with narrowed eyes and a crooked smile.
“Think more
Daniel felt heat rise to his face as she laughed. “So, what’s different for you?”
She blushed and looked away. “Apparently I married McKay,” she muttered.
Daniel laughed so hard he almost spat out his coffee. “You’re joking.”
She glared at him.
Daniel sat his coffee down slowly, struggling to restrain the urge to laugh. “So no lemon chicken for Sunday dinner at your house.”
Sam rolled her eyes and made a gesture. “Go on, get it out of your system.”
“So… uh … how did that work out for you?”
“Divorced,” Sam answered, “But she still had a few pictures in her drawer in her lab.”
“Where you keep yours?”
She nodded, “Mine are of the team and Cassie, though.”
Daniel looked at the surface of the desk before speaking. “Janet died here, you know.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I haven’t been close friends with another woman since she died, Daniel. It’s different, with Vala, but it’s the same as well. Does that make sense?”
“Janet, you…” He nodded. “This reality seems hard a little hit, doesn’t it?”
“And maybe you and Vala,” Sam added in a subdued tone. “You two haven’t had tremors and it’s been four days, Daniel. That doesn’t give much hope for this reality’s equivalents.”
“Not to mention that
“Jack,” Sam stated.
“Playing on your mind as well?” Daniel answered the unspoken question with a question. “He’s lost more than any of us.”
“He lost us. It was hard enough to lose you the first time. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost two of you. Or if we can't get back.”
“The team here might not be the same,” Daniel pointed out quietly, it sounding hollow even as he said it.
Sam only looked at him. She looked away, eyes bright and voice throbbing. “I want to go home, Daniel. This isn’t home, and it’s too close to it.”
Daniel put a hand on her wrist, nodding. “I know.”
* * * *
Her voice was thick and not entirely awake in the darkness.
“I thought you’d gone to the office.”
“I did,” Daniel replied as he pulled off his t-shirt, not putting on the light and relying on his hands to find the bed. He lay down on his side with a sigh, facing her.
“How’s Sam?”
“Exhausted. I convinced her to get some sleep, at least.”
He felt her arm slip around his waist, her body curve against his and her feet against his shins. “Can I convince you to do the same?”
Daniel smelled her shampoo as he leaned his forehead on hers. “I don’t think I need much convincing.” He felt her hands guide his head to her shoulder as he closed his eyes.
* * * *
Two weeks later:
Jack’s voice reverberated through the speaker-phone from the control room.
“Carter! Now would be great!”
Sam shared a look with Vala, rolling her eyes.
“I can’t make it go any faster than it is, General,” she replied, voice laced with the particular brand of patience designed to send Felger scurrying from her lab.
“How long?”
Some things just don’t change, Sam thought, switching screens on the display. “We’re at eighty-five percent.”
“That enough? Prometheus is just about out of dodging time, Carter.”
“It’s all or nothing,” Sam disagreed. “I hate to say it but we might have to accept some damage to save the planet.”
“So if that bar isn’t all the way done, we’re one-hundred percent screwed?”
Sam didn’t answer beyond a rueful half-smile to Vala. “Ninety percent, we just need a little time.”
“Sam.” Vala tugged her sleeve. “It’s slowing down. Should it be slowing down?”
“No, it shouldn’t be.” Voice distracted, Sam punched keys quickly. “Vala, can you-?”
Vala slid from the desk and went to the device on the other side of the room. “On it. How far do you want to push it?”
Sam paused. “Try upping the northern board by ten percent. It was the more reliable in simulation.”
Vala did as she was told.
“When the time comes,” Sam instructed, “You hit the button that releases the power into the system.”
“On the laptop,” Vala affirmed with a nod. “And you’ll start the phase shift?”
* * * *
“Should I-?”
“They’ll tell us when they’re done,” Daniel broke in. “And they won’t thank us for slowing them down in the process. They are trying to channel the power for an entire continent.”
Jack shifted from one foot to the other impatiently. “Why did she need Mal Doran in the lab? She could have had any scientist on the planet.”
“Sam trusts her and Vala’s worked with the machine longer than your scientists. Besides, all she needs to do is what she’s told.”
Jack shot him an ironic look and Daniel rolled his eyes.
“Don’t say it,” he cautioned with a dry smile. “It’s way too obvious a pun - even for you.”
“General O’Neill,” a heavily accented voice said through the speakers, cutting off Jack’s reply. “We were under the impression your device would be active by this time.”
Jack muttered an ‘oy’ before signalling the airman to patch through the video.
“It’s almost there, Ambassador,” he answered with a wave.
“‘Almost’ will soon be ‘too late’, General.”
Daniel instinctively stepped in to cut off Jack’s harsh reply. “What the general means to say is that we only need a little time – minutes at the most. Prometheus and the squadron of F302s are holding off the Ori ship successfully, and we’re almost ready.”
The Russian ambassador paused. “When will we know if the device has been successful or not?”
“Oh, you’ll know,” Jack replied with a nod and smile, “Just get your sunglasses ready.” He signalled the airman to cut the feed and rolled his eyes at Daniel with a smile he knew to take as ‘thanks’. After a pause he looked at Daniel with a raised eyebrow. “Can I call them yet?”
“Oh yeah,” Daniel replied quickly.
* * * *
“Ladies, hate to rush you-”
Vala looked at Sam, lost at her keyboard in the battle to keep the power regulation stable and hit the reply button on the intercom. “Ninety-eight percent, General.”
“It’s going to have to be enough, Prometheus can’t take another graze and they’re coming around again!”
Sam hesitated. “Are they sighting on the mountain?”
There was a pause at the other end. “They are now!”
Vala looked at Sam, who moved quickly from her keyboard to Merlin’s device. Vala smoothly moved into position at the laptop. “Ready.”
“Three, two… mark!”
The room flooded with white light, Sam and Vala locking eyes with baited breath.
In the wake of the light, the control room fell silent.
As a flood of amber light shot through the room, Sam let out an explosive breath and leaned her head on the desk.
Walking through it slowly, Vala prodded her in the arm. “Hey. Look at it. It’s kinda pretty when it’s not burning you alive.”
Sam sat up with a tired grin and held out her arm, turning it in the haze and tilting her head. “I keep thinking it should tingle,” she remarked.
Five minutes later and long after the beam had dispersed, Daniel and Jack walked into the lab.
“Cut it a little fine there, ladies,” Jack announced with a grin, “But I like your style.”
Vala hit Daniel in the arm as he came to stand beside her.
“Ow. What’d I do?”
“Nothing,” Vala answered with a wide grin, “I’m just saying ‘I told you so.’”
“Oh,” Daniel replied then frowned. “Why?”
“I told you we were in-demand world saviours and all that.”
CHAPTER 16: Ship in a Bottle
“I fell just like a
ship in a bottle, I don’t know how to get out or how I got in.”
- The Hot Puppies
“Vala?”
They’d been in the alternate reality for three weeks.
“Can you hand me that-?”
She handed over the scraping tool, Daniel having all but taken over his predecessor’s work. He couldn’t just watch it sit on the desk.
“I don’t see how I could mistake-”
Vala turned the page in her novel without looking up. “You didn’t ascend here. You never learnt Ancient here.”
“But even then, some of these verb constructs are so obvious-”
“You didn’t learn it intuitively here. Ancient is only a distant cousin to Latin, after all, Daniel. Its irregular verbs and participles are difficult to translate.”
Daniel looked up at her, then back at his work. “Can you-?”
The soft brush slapped into his hand.
“But even then, I should have known something was-”
He broke off, watching her sink further into the chair and pull her knees closer to her chest. “What?”
She didn’t answer.
He prodded her in the leg with the end of the brush.
She slapped it away, the ends of her fingertips stinging against his wrist.
“Ow.” He sighed, and his voice took on a resigned tone. “What’d I do?”
Vala’s dark eyes were stormy over the top of the book and her voice taut. “Could you not? I’m at the good part. I’ll be your dutiful assistant again once I work out whether Harry dies or not, Daniel.”
“You do know there’s seven-”
She dropped the book into her lap and covered her ears, eyes screwed up.
“You don’t want to know?”
She shook her head, eyes still shut and hands over ears.
He sighed and turned back to his work, smiling. Her feet found their place to the edge of the desk again and he saw her shoulders hunch over the thick, brightly coloured book.
Ten minutes of silence later, Daniel was lost in Ancient again.
He automatically held out a hand and asked for a tool.
A minute later his hand was still empty.
He looked round, surprised. Vala didn’t look up. He blinked and got the tool himself.
Another half hour ticked by, interrupted sharply when Vala slammed the book closed with bright but agitated eyes.
Daniel turned to face her, gesturing to the book. “Good?”
“Good enough read,” she answered dismissively.
Daniel paused, thoroughly confused. “You just read it for three hours straight.”
“Well, the plot’s gripping enough,” came the answer. “And I’d read three-hundred pages or more by the time you interrupted. I wasn’t missing the ending.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“No, Daniel, I liked it.”
Daniel fought the urge to drop his head with a sigh. Something was wrong with Vala, and she wasn’t saying it.
“So what-?”
“Need anything? Can I hand you anything?”
Oh, boy.
“Isn’t that the one where the villain comes back?”
“Yes, Daniel, it is. It’s also the one where Cedric Diggory dies, a rather charming young man.” She paused. “Oh, didn’t you know that? Now, what’s this?”
Daniel ran a hand through his hair. I’m seriously missing something here.
“It’s the one where they hang the muggles upside down in the air, isn’t it?”
Why am I still talking about the book?
“Why are you still talking about the book, Daniel?” She crossed her legs on the chair. “You found it average, didn’t finish it. I liked it, but I’m not raving.” Her eyes flashed. “Yes, the muggles do get hung up in the air. In fact, they get humiliated. And most of the wizards are too busy saving their own skins to help them.” She leaned forward. “What if they’d fallen? Those wizards would have watched them die and done nothing.”
“What could they have done?”
“Protected them, Daniel. They had the power to. Isn’t that what heroes do?”
He wanted to put his head on the cold desk and sit there for a while. Ancient verbs were confusing, but not in the same league of confusing as Vala.
“What’s this really about, Vala?”
She fixed him with a glare. “You think this isn’t what it’s about?”
He held her gaze and she rolled her eyes, pushing the book off of the table to thud on the floor.
“What day is it, Daniel? What time?”
He looked at his watch, more baffled than ever. “Just
“Yes, Daniel, it’s a Friday night.” She punctuated her words with hand gestures seemingly meant to imitate blinking lights. “Even in our world we wouldn’t be in the office right now. We’d be somewhere, there would be fun involved. Remember fun, Daniel?”
“You’re bored? You want me to stop doing this because you’re bored?”
It came out harsher than he thought it would. The sensible voice in his head took a seat at the back with a rueful shake of its head, denying all responsibility for anything that happened next.
She looked at him, eyes hard and posture crying out fury.
She slammed the book back on the desk silently, picking up the brush he’d sat on her side of the desk and roughly putting it into his hand. She waved a hand expansively to the office, holding his gaze. “Yes, Daniel, I’m bored.”
While he stood, stricken dumb, she strode out of the office with her parting shot of, “think what you want, just not that you’ll be getting first choice of sides in the bed,” ringing in his ears.
The sensible voice in his head looked up and whispered, Well, that could have went better. He told it to shut up and sat back down at his translation work, glad that he put his pen through the paper and not the seven-thousand year-old tablet.
You should go after her, the thought drifted across his mind.
“That’s entirely unreasonable,” he muttered out loud, swearing when the coffee he reached for turned out to be cold. “I’ll go to bed and she’ll be fine. She just needs to… watch a chick flick or something. Get it out of her system.”
You know it’s more
serious than that.
“She started it,” he ground out, focussing intently on the tablet.
You know how immature
that sounds, don’t you?
He threw the pen.
* * * *
Vala slammed the door shut behind her, walking into their quarters and not entirely sure what she wanted to do there.
She’d seen a film where someone had killed a pet rabbit
because a man had annoyed her. Firstly,
that makes no sense, and secondly, I
like rabbits. I couldn’t kill something
so adorable or anything connected with chocolate in some mysterious manner.
That left the DVD collection, sorely limited in this reality. For once, all she wanted was the Simpsons. Or the other one with the inter-planetary pizza delivery. A lot of planets could benefit from that service.
Going through the boxes of stuff they’d been allocated, Vala threw a book across the room and
then hissed in a wince of pain. I’ll
offer to file Woolsey’s toes before I read the next one of those books.
She knew it wasn’t Harry Potter’s fault she and Daniel were fighting, but it was easier to blame him than either Daniel or herself.
Vala picked up the itinerary in disgust, looking at the ‘optional social event’ scheduled for that night. Her hand went to the phone.
Sam picked up after three rings.
“Yes, that’s exactly why I was calling, Sam,” she said brightly. “We haven’t had a girls’ night for about a month now…. I agree, far too long. Actually, I was thinking of a girls’ night out. You know, just for a change.”
CHAPTER 17: Mine’s Not a High Horse
“Hello little boys,
little toys,
We’re the dreams you're believing,
Crawling up the walls,
Running down your face,
Razor sharp, razor clean.”
- Shiny Toy Guns, Le Disko
Sam had known it the minute she’d laid eyes on Vala.
Oh, Daniel.
Black dress. Killer heels. Hair down and natural curls aided by the tongs she’d almost left on when they left.
What have you done?
There was no other possible explanation. And now, Vala was putting in a truly stellar performance. Sam wondered whether opening the door to the function was wise, whether she should drag the other woman back to the mountain and lock a certain doctor of archaeology in the same room with her until they sorted it out.
That became irrelevant when Vala opened both doors at the same time, standing in the exact centre of the doorway to look through her tiny, matching and infinitely stylish purse for something she evidently couldn’t find only to look up and find every eye in the room fixed on her. Smiling a soft, bashful and apparently surprised smile, she pulled the thick curtain of her hair behind her neck and across one shoulder, inadvertently giving a perfect view of the other, bare, one. With the same soft smile and slight wave to the room, she held out a hand to Sam. Sam tilted her head and rolled her eyes before stepping into the doorway, dressed in the long, slim purple number Vala had all but thrown at her.
Vala slipped an arm through hers and smiled regally, tossing her hair back as conversation slowly resumed through the room.
“Interesting entrance,” Sam murmured, polite and slightly forced smile unwavering.
Vala smirked. “Drinks, darling?”
Looking around the room, filled with both the important and the decorated, then back to the now-grinning ferociously Vala, Sam simply nodded and allowed herself to be steered to the bar.
She took the glass of champagne as a colonel joined them.
“Colonel Emerson,” he introduced himself.
Vala daintily shook his hand and looked at him innocently. “So, Colonel, are you an officer and a gentleman or just the first one?”
Sam downed the champagne. Oh, Daniel, what have you done?
* * * *
Daniel heard the knock on the office door and called back irritably without looking up.
“I’m out of phase, you can’t see me, come back later.”
He heard a snigger and looked up irritably, fixing a glare on the grinning figure.
“We’re all out of phase, Danny boy, whole planet included. Thank your Carter for that.”
Despite the glare, Jack propped himself up on the edge of the desk.
“Your Daniel was clearly better at the ‘go away’ glares,” Daniel muttered.
“And that pretty thief of yours, too. She’s really not stupid.”
“She’s not a thief,” Daniel defended automatically, before remembering he wasn’t speaking to Vala and closing his eyes with a frustrated sigh.
He looked up to find Jack smirking insufferably at him.
“You know, you two aren’t all that different.”
Jack gave him a sceptical look. “Oh, you’re going to have to explain that one.”
“You both smirk like that, you both annoy the hell out of me, you both make me want to put my head on this desk and never sit up,” Daniel shot back.
Jack smirked. “You know, you were going to fight at some point.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“You didn’t deny you were fighting,” Jack retorted with a grin. “And no, it wasn’t. But I bet those scratchings aren’t either.”
Daniel looked up again over his glasses. “These are seven thousand year old etchings in an Ancient dialect. Not scratchings.”
“See? They’re ancient; they’ve waited until now, they’ll wait one more day.” Jack gestured at the tablet as he spoke, and in the ensuing silence leaned over the desk to push Daniel’s glasses back up from the tip of his nose.
Daniel knocked his forehead with his fist, then smiled despite himself and looked at Jack with a dry grin. “You know that was terrible. Even by your standards.”
Jack shrugged. “There’s a bar with beer. They make you bring your own misery, I warn you, but you can’t have everything on a platter. Plan A?”
Daniel looked between Jack and the tablet. “What’s Plan B?”
“There’s a suit and tie shindig in town in your honour.”
“Sounds like Plan F. F as in-”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. God, you’re downright cranky. Plan B. I have cable and beer.”
* * * *
Vala slid into the seat next to Sam. “You never told me so many officers could dance, Samantha.”
Sam looked at her and spoke slowly. “How many of those have you had?”
“Nowhere near enough to be drunk, if that’s what you mean. And if Colonel Emerson asks you to dance again, it’ll be the fourth time.”
“That only works in Pride and Prejudice.”
“Really? Because I was sure he was looking at you.”
“Well, I was right in front of him.”
Vala rolled her eyes and butted her shoulder against Sam’s. “You know, looking at you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Sam answered, grinning.
“That’s not a denial,” Vala shot back.
“Miss Vala?”
He was perfectly polite, perfectly dressed and perfectly coiffed. Sam didn’t like him instantly; his hair, shoes, clothes or his smile. And his hand looked mightily smooth – the kind of smooth you got by not doing a hard day’s work for a lifetime.
Vala shook his hand delicately, fixing him with a smile and winking. “Just Vala, darling.”
He grinned and asked her to dance.
Sam definitely didn’t like him, but Colonel Emerson asked her to dance again before she could send a misgiving glance to Vala.
As if she’d listen.
* * * *
“So I said, ‘What? Are you bored?’ and I know that was stupid, Jack, I know it was, but I just, you know, said it.”
Jack rolled his eyes and smacked him across the back of his head.
“Ow,” Daniel muttered. He tried to put a hand on the back of his head.
Jack struggled not to laugh. “Danny, your head is up. And you’re a lightweight in multiple realities.”
“Need a hand, sir?”
Jack waved the colonel to his seat, “Nah, Reynolds, he’ll be fine. Minor domestic. Don’t let Lorne kick your ass this time.”
Jack sat Daniel in one of the booths.
“Why’d you hit me?”
“I didn’t hit you hard, you just don’t have any balance.”
“Oh. Why’d you hit me?”
Jack rolled his eyes. “You’re an idiot, that’s why.”
“She started it.”
“What age are you, five?”
Daniel looked at him a little sulkily. “She … she … wanted to go out.”
“But Daniel! It’s Friday!” Jack exclaimed. “I see your point, completely unreasonable.”
“I know!” Daniel thumped the table with his fist then fixed an eye on Jack. “Wait. You’re mocking me.”
“Always. But seriously, Daniel, heard of cabin fever?”
“You think?”
“I think. She’s been cooped up in that base for weeks. She misses your reality. Can you blame the girl for being a bit bored?”
Daniel put his head on the table with a groan.
Jack looked around, eyes wide. “What’d I say?”
Reynolds shrugged and went back to playing pool.
Daniel’s voice was muffled by the edge of the table. “You sound just like her.”
“Oh. Doesn’t make you less of an idiot, though. Besides, how often is she in your lab or Sam’s lab?”
Daniel sat up slowly and squinted at his hands, counting, losing count and starting all over again. The third time, Jack rolled his eyes and put a hand on the table. “Let’s settle for ‘a lot’, all right?”
“Wha’s your point?”
Oh great, now he’s slurring. Carter and Mal Doran are going to kill me if getting him back to the base doesn’t do it first.
“She’s practically your research assistant, right? Or Sam’s lab assistant?”
“Vala? Can you hand me
that-?”
“’Spose so.”
“That’s right, Danny, stay with me, try and keep up. How often do you say thank you?”
“I’ll go back to being
your dutiful assistant once I find out whether Harry dies or not.”
Jack left Daniel sitting at the table, staring into space, and ordered in another round as Daniel presumably cycled through his memories.
Daniel didn’t notice he’d been gone.
As the archaeologist reached for the beer, Jack held it out of reach. “How often?”
“Not very,” he mumbled. He reached for the beer again.
“Ah, not until you listen,” Jack answered. “I’ve been married. So you deal with things differently. Vala wants to get her nails painted and dance with Carter around their handbags until dawn, you want to work. So spend some time apart. It’s not like it’ll kill you anymore.”
* * * *
As Sam nodded to Emerson with a smile, she walked over to their table and touched Vala’s shoulder. “Hey, everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah, fine,” came the answer. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Sam wasn’t convinced. The tense set of her shoulders gave it away. Sam waved someone headed in their direction away and sat down. “You turned down someone who wanted to dance with you, and I happen to know you love this song for reasons beyond human knowledge.”
Vala smiled crookedly. “Remember what we’d do on Fridays back home?”
“Movie night,” Sam replied with a smile.
Vala smiled sadly. “Movie night.” She looked around the room, expression fighting contempt.
“You know, the bar around the corner has a jukebox with this song on it,” Sam said quietly. “And I know Colonel Reynolds will be there, maybe even Major Lorne and a few others.”
“I haven’t beaten him at pool in this reality yet, have I?” Vala answered, smirk coming back. She picked up her bag.
Vala let out an explosive breath as they stepped into the cool night air.
“So what really happened?”
Vala looked at her dryly and then away again. “Cumulative effect, Sam. It’s all so fake in there. And-”
“What?” Sam prompted after she broke off.
Vala took a breath and looked at her. “No one seems to care there’s a whole galaxy open to the Ori out there. So long as they can hide Earth, no one cares about the thousands of other planets also open to attack.”
Sam ducked her head and looked up. “I know. The laws here… did you see that protester, before we walked in?”
“I’m not sure I like this reality, Sam,” Vala stated bluntly after a moment.
“I’m not sure either,” Sam answered, putting an arm through hers, “But there isn’t much we can do about in these heels.”
They locked eyes.
“Bar? Maybe they’ll serve something with a bit of a kick.”
“Bar.”
* * * *
They closed the door quietly, turning around to realise the growing hush was actually due to them.
“Okay, this one I didn’t mean,” Vala said in a low voice, leaning near to Sam.
“Ladies,” Jack greeted them, standing and waving them over to their table. He raised an eyebrow. “Dressed to impress?”
“We dropped by our allocated ‘optional social event,’” Sam answered, tone deeply ironic.
“That good, huh?”
Vala bent down in front of Daniel, turning his head to hers. “Daniel?”
He grinned and put a hand on her cheek, eyebrows knitted together as if finding her cheek took a lot of effort on his part. “Is that you?”
She sent Jack a glare that sent him scurrying to the bar and asking Sam if he could get her anything. Vala looked back at the clearly drunk Daniel with a slightly helpless smile. “Of course it’s me, silly.”
“Am I… talking to you?”
She nodded, eyes serious. “It would appear you are.”
“Are you… talking to me?”
“It appears I am.” Vala smiled crookedly and sent Sam a look of gratitude, hearing the jukebox starting up. She tugged Daniel to his feet and pulled him in the direction of the small dance floor, stopping by the bar and muttering to Jack, “That had better be water you’re pouring for my Daniel.”
He shot her a guilty look and quietly said, “Yes, ma’am,” signalling the barman for a water as Sam shook her head ruefully.
As Daniel leaned against her, his chin settling on top of her head, she squinted and spoke in a low voice. “You’re not as drunk as you seem, are you?”
She felt him laugh deep in his chest. “I’m not sober, but I’m not as drunk as Jack thinks I am either.”
She grinned. “Why?”
He shrugged. “He gets a kick out of it and he misses the me who should be here.”
“Genius,” Vala muttered quietly.
“Thank you.” His hand moved to the small of her back. “So, you mentioned choosing sides of the bed.”
“So long as I have time on my own sometimes, that shouldn’t be a problem, Daniel.”
He nodded, “And you don’t always have to help me, you know.”
She nodded, “And … we should probably, you know,” she prodded his arm, “Talk about these things.”
“Before you start throwing Harry Potter books?”
“Saw that, then?”
“Nice aim. Steel door, no dents-”
“Rings like a bell-”
“Might want to try something lighter next time.”
They grinned at each other. “I thought that too.”
At the table, watching, Sam and Jack let out a simultaneous sigh of relief and laughed.
“Oh, thank god for that,” Sam choked out, putting her head on the table.
CHAPTER 18: Maybe Tomorrow
“If something has to
change, then it always will;
If something has to
give, then it always will.”
- The Editors, Bullets
Daniel knew he shouldn’t consider taking her hand in the middle of a meeting, but he was. Vala shifted from one side of her seat to the other constantly and had barely said a word in two and half hours.
He wasn’t sure what had drawn her eyebrows together, what had sparked her to raise her chin in that way, but he knew it couldn’t be good.
Woolsey continued to throw out statistics about the phase device’s power consumption. He’s either stupid or very smart, Daniel thought, either he wants us to think he’s intelligent because he has a concept of numbers above ten thousand or he thinks we’ll get so bored we’ll let the IOA do what they want just to make him stop.
Daniel didn’t want to think about the ease with which he included himself, Sam and Vala into the eternal ‘we’ aligned with Jack that opposed the ‘they’ of the IOA on principle.
Letting Woolsey’s voice roll over his awareness, Daniel focussed on Vala, seeing every sign of impending danger. Ruefully, he thought that he now knew better than to put it down to boredom, or to say that if he thought it.
“I’m sorry,” Vala broke in, looking around the now-silent room and gesturing to the white board, “I know you all think of me as some sort of outsider here, but all of this planning seems to suggest you won’t be reversing the phase shift anytime soon.”
Woolsey shared an uncomfortable look with another pen-pusher, Colonel Simmons, and looked back at her.
“What they don’t have the stomach to say, Vala,” Jack remarked quietly, voice laden with disgust, “Is that as long as the power resources are there, that’s exactly what they’re planning.”
In the beat of silence that followed, Vala’s nostrils flared as she shared a wide-eyed shake of her head with Sam and Daniel.
“There’s a galaxy of millions out there,” Vala said forcefully, leaning forward. “Are you just going to leave them for the Ori to convert or kill so long as you can hide?”
“There are millions here, Miss Mal Doran,” Simmons answered contemptuously in a tone that had made the hairs on the back of Daniel’s neck stand on end.
Vala shot him a disparaging look, sliding out of her seat and using the opportunity to put a hand on Daniel’s wrist. He knew when he was being told she could handle it.
Vala stepped up to opposite Simmons and very slowly looked him up and down, eyes lingering on his rank badges before flicking to Jack’s and back. “It’s just Vala.”
Jack leaned back in his chair to speak to Daniel in a very low voice. “In your reality, did she talk to the appropriations committee about the budget?”
“Oh yeah,” Daniel answered.
“Oh god,” came the reply.
Daniel shared a grin with Sam. “Don’t worry, she’s picked up a few things since then.”
“That’s what worries me,” Sam and Jack said simultaneously.
Contrary to expectations, Vala switched her gaze from Simmons to Woolsey with one last contemptuous look at the baffled colonel. “You I’m surprised at. You I’d been told better things about.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Vala smiled softly. “My friends told me that they rarely agreed with you but that you always did what you believed was right, so they respected you in spite of that.” She shrugged and looked around the room. “I’m not convinced you think this is right.”
With that, she walked out of the room.
Daniel smiled crookedly before turning serious. He and Jack shared a look, and Jack lowered his eyes first. Daniel saw Sam’s hands twisting in her lap. “And we still have to go back to our world.”
Every eye turned to him, knowing what he was really saying.
“And we’ll be taking Merlin’s device with us,” Sam said levelly. “Our world might still be there and might still need it.”
“You would leave us defenceless for what might be a chunk of ash and rock? Millions?” Simmons was on his feet, a vein in his forehead throbbing.
Daniel refused to stand, not willing to escalate the situation. “If it were the opposite way around, would you give up on your home?” Daniel met Simmons’ eyes and knew the man was selfish at the core, so turned to the others in the room. “Would you?”
“I know the shield technology,” Sam put in gently. “Given the right resources and time, I can replicate it. A lot of the data is on the laptop I brought and that will protect you. But the device is necessary to create the bridge between realities; we can’t get home without it, and we are going home.”
Jack was conspicuously silent in the chaos after Sam’s announcement, no one noticing when he slipped out of the room.
Sam and Daniel traded looks then followed.
* * * *
Vala stood in the corridor, the sides of her fists against the wall and her forehead against her fists.
Turning and hitting her head off the wall, she met Jack’s eyes and had the feeling of being weighed and measured.
She tilted her head and held his gaze. “Am I found wanting, General?”
He blinked, his head dropping a little as he smiled bitterly and shook his head. “Not you.”
“Jack!”
They both turned to see Sam and Daniel coming in their direction.
Jack sighed and muttered an ‘oy.’ “Daniel, just… give me minute, that okay?”
Daniel nodded and Jack left, running a hand through his short hair. Sam, after a deep breath and a momentary hesitation, followed.
Daniel met Vala’s eyes. “What just happened?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Vala answered slowly, “But I think it was important.”
Daniel’s eyes were on the stairs Jack had taken two at a time. “I think he just realised he’s lost us after all.”
He felt her hand slip into his. “He never knew me.”
“No,” Daniel admitted, “First time for that.”
* * * *
Later that night, Vala turned over and stretched her hands out beneath the pillow.
Daniel turned to face her, a fingertip trailing along her jaw. “Can’t sleep?”
“The more I think about it, the more I want to go home,” Vala answered quietly, smiling crookedly. “I hate that there’s millions of people out there being conquered.” She paused, meeting his eyes. “Do you ever wonder about this reality’s versions of us?”
Daniel sighed. “I’d like to think we’re living on some backwater planet-”
“Garden?”
“Garden, farm, house, kids, taking turns doing the school run in a beat-up cargo ship, all of that.”
He stopped, as if realising what he’d said. She nodded with a soft smile, “All of that?”
He wrapped his fingers around hers and nodded very seriously. “I can see why they do it.”
“Why they hide here?”
He nodded. “We’re all fighting for the big things, but only for the little things. I want to stop the Ori in the galaxy because I want to, but also because I want my little corner untouched. I can see the temptation.”
Vala smiled a little bitterly and shrugged. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Daniel, but I can’t. As strange as that sounds coming from me.”
“When’d this happen?”
She looked at him. “When’d I stop being selfish, do you mean?”
Daniel nodded.
She sat up. “I never pretended to be something I’m not. I never set myself up as a guardian and then refused to follow through.”
“You think that’s what they’re doing?” Daniel also sat up.
“Yes,” her answer was instant. “Your planet meddles; this reality or ours, Daniel, it meddles. You give people democracy, you give them ideas, you do it with only the best of intentions, but you upset the way things are. You can’t do that and then leave them in mid-air with no way to the ground and wide open to any predator that comes along. You can’t retreat from that responsibility once you’ve taken it.”
“Like the Ori?”
“Like the Ori,” she affirmed.
“You think we’ve been irresponsible?”
“You haven’t been out there these past ten years, Daniel,” Vala said heatedly. “You haven’t seen the chaos in the wake of fallen goa’ulds, the scramble for power and the lives lost in it. Some planets are in worse shape now than they ever have been. Opportunists like the Lucien Alliance-”
“Like you were?”
“Like I was,” she admitted, unflinching.
“What were we meant to do? Leave things as they were?”
“No.” Her reply is emphatic. She gestured in the air. “I don’t know what you were meant to do, but you can’t undo it, so you can’t pull back.”
“Are we arguing about this?”
“Almost,” Vala admitted. “But this is actually worth arguing about.”
“I can see why you’d say that,” Daniel conceded. “We got to leave at the end of every mission; we didn’t have to live with the consequences of getting out alive. But we’re just one planet as well.”
“Then you shouldn’t get in deeper than you’re willing to stay,” Vala rejoined.
Daniel frowned. “That’s a little simplistic.”
“Naïve?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m sorry, Daniel,” Vala shot back, voice rising slightly, “I used up my limited supply of maturity a few days ago.”
“What’s that meant to mean?”
Vala pushed her hair back and looked at him archly. “You have a gift for swallowing your feet. And I could have said much more than I did, but I decided to be the bigger person since you were acting like a moody teenager.”
Daniel smiled crookedly, ducking his head with a mild wince at the memory, “It’s putting my foot in my mouth, and I know. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I love you, feet-eating and all,” Vala retorted, “And I wasn’t about to let Harry Potter be the reason we had a major argument, even if you were an idiot, and mean, and -”
Daniel rolled his eyes and held up his hands. “And you didn’t deserve it, I know, don’t slap me, Jack already did that. Going to dine out on that one for a while?”
“Oh, like you wouldn’t believe, darling,” Vala shot back with a smirk. “Both literally and figuratively.”
They met each others’ eyes and laughed.
“Are inter-galactic politics a good enough reason?” Daniel asked after a moment.
“Do we actually disagree?”
He thought about it. “No. But since I was on the front line and know how little choice we had at the time, I guess I struggle to be less than defensive about it.”
“Good,” Vala let out a breath and fell back, feeling the tension bleed out of the room. “I know I’ve said this before, Daniel, but I don’t like this reality. It’s everything I struggle with about our world with very little of what makes it worth it.”
“I know,” Daniel agreed, lying back down next to her, resting his chin on his hand and combing her hair through with his other hand. “But we’re going home soon, no matter what the fall out from the meeting today. And for the record, you’re not an outsider and you’re anything but naïve.”
She grinned widely, and then a little wickedly with a raised eyebrow. “How are you defining ‘naïve’? The opposite of,” her fingertip trailed along his jaw as she tilted her head, “… innocent?”
He grinned and kissed her.
*
* * *
They waited in the briefing room, watching Jack talk on the phone through the glass.
Vala fidgeted. “He’s frowning. That’s not good. That can’t be good. Right?”
Daniel put a hand on her arm.
Sam sighed. “We just have to wait.”
“I should never have to wait,” Vala retorted, “I’m terrible at it.”
Sam smiled ruefully. “You’d think it’d be good for you, then. Make you grow as a person.”
“But what about the rest of us in the process?” Daniel muttered, Vala grinning and lightly hitting his arm.
Jack stood in the doorway, expression conflicted and voice neutral. He locked eyes with Sam. “If you can make the shield work, and you can figure out how to leave, they’re not going to stop you.”
“The shield was the deal-breaker?” Sam asked, standing.
He nodded. Sam nodded in return. “I can do that.”
This should feel like a victory, like one step closer, Daniel thought, feeling Vala let out a breath next to him. But meeting Jack’s eyes, he couldn’t make himself believe it.
* * * *
Location: Unknown.
“So…”
“Yes, Colonel Mitchell?”
“How long do you figure we’ve been here?”
“I am afraid I do not know.”
“Where do you figure ‘here’ is?”
“As I have said, I do not know, Colonel Mitchell.”
“You’re doing that kel-no-reem thing, aren’t you?”
“I am attempting to do so.”
“I’m guessing I’m not helping?”
Teal’c waited a beat before slowly answering, “Indeed.”
Teal’c opened an eye and raised an eyebrow.
Teal’c inclined his head. “I believe that to be a most wise idea, Colonel Mitchell.”
As
“Mitchell, Teal’c! How’s it going?” He looked at
“Guessing you haven’t figured out-”
“We are not aware of our location, O’Neill,” Teal’c intoned, “Nor the duration of our captivity.”
“Ah,” Jack said slowly, looking between a nodding
“Ooh,” Jack said, looking at the ball and holding up both hands. “Mitchell, did I ever tell you about the time Teal’c and I learnt to juggle? It was a blast, wasn’t it, Teal’c?... Teal’c?”
Teal’c leaned his head against the wall and hoped their captors were more merciful than his team mates.
CHAPTER 19: When the Curious Girl Realises She is Under Glass
“You’re the truth, not
I.”
- Placebo, Twenty Years
“So what’s the agenda for today, kids?” Jack asked, sliding into the seat next to Daniel.
“I’m working on the planetary shield,” Sam answered, pouring the orange juice at his nod and grinning at the sight of his fruit loops.
“I think I’m going to go into the town,” Daniel put in after a moment. “I’d like to check out the bookstores and it’d be nice to see natural light for a little while.”
“I’ll drive you,” Jack offered, “I’ve been thinking of picking up a few books myself. Haven’t quite finished Dostoevsky, but what’s a man to do?”
Vala grinned and nodded, Sam and Daniel looking between them dryly.
Jack looked at Daniel. “Dostoevsky? No?”
Daniel shook his head with a smile.
“So, Vala?” Jack said quickly.
She smiled and shared a long look with Daniel. “I think I’ll help Sam in the lab, actually.” Daniel grinned crookedly as she looked at Sam. “That okay?”
“I’d appreciate it,” Sam answered with a smile.
* * * *
“So what was that about this morning?” Jack asked bluntly as Daniel pulled on his leather jacket and took the passenger seat. “And everything’s happy in the land of Oz?”
“Oh, we had a talk,” Daniel replied, putting the seat belt into its socket.
“Good,” Jack answered and left it at that.
“Jack?”
“Daniel.”
“I know it hasn’t been-”
“Daniel, let’s … not,” Jack broke in, hand gesturing in the air above the wheel. “It’s been nice to pretend my friends were still here, but your reality and your me probably needs you as much as I miss … our you?”
“Yeah, that confused me as well,” Daniel remarked after a beat. “But I get it. And if you’ll admit to missing me, I’m definitely not your me.”
“True. Even if you’re a pain in the ass in every dimension.”
“Reality.”
“Stop listening to Carter, you’ll encourage her.”
Daniel ducked his head with a smile.
“So you’re going to the bookstore.” Jack said the last word with mild distaste.
“Where you going?” Daniel asked.
“DVD store – new series of the Simpsons.”
“It’s still running here?”
Jack looked at him in abject horror as they pulled into the parking lot. “They’ve stopped making the Simpsons in your reality?!”
“Oh, yeah,” Daniel deadpanned, “But Futurama’s on season ten or eleven, so it’s not so bad.”
“Futurama. Season eleven?! Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” Jack paused and cuffed him over the head as they stepped away from the car. “Now I know you’re messing with me, smart ass.”
* * * *
“Sam?”
Vala spoke quietly in the doorway, leaning on the frame and watching the blonde physicist.
“Can we make this work?”
Sam met her eyes and raised her chin. “Yes.”
“The shield or the bridge?” Vala asked, sitting down on the stool next to her.
“Both,” Sam answered with a grin. “Remember I said that the Renasri shield had months to go back home?”
Vala smiled slowly, “It’s been months, hasn’t it?”
Sam nodded and gestured to the laptop. “It’s actually been easier to work from the schematics and work from this reality’s resources than to alter the Renasri original.”
“Why?” Vala asked, frowning slightly.
“There’s been several alterations made to it for maintenance over the centuries that are unnecessary in ours.”
“Extra pieces to the puzzle,” Vala nodded.
“Exactly,” Sam answered, pointing to the diagram. “Until now I’ve been mostly figuring out which bits are necessary and which just made it run better for the Renasri.”
“Like testing a string of Christmas lights?”
Sam looked at her blankly.
“One Life to Live,” Vala admitted.
Sam nodded and grinned. “Almost exactly that. You know, we’ll have to have a proper Christmas when we get back.”
“Presents?”
“Presents, food, decorations – you name it.”
Vala grinned from her position close to a circuit panel and her hand stopped mid-air, holding a set of pliers. “I can live with that.”
* * * *
Daniel had no idea why he had found himself in the section he had. You always do, came the internal reply, and you always get annoyed.
“I know they’re all wrong,” Daniel muttered, picking up another archaeology book, this time written by an old colleague. “But it annoys me anyway.”
“Dr. Jackson,” a polite voice said behind him, “I’m a fan of your work.”
“Really? Because I thought they shelved me in the science fict-” Daniel answered as he turned and then almost dropped the book in his hands. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Ghannis La’al raised an eyebrow.
Daniel lowered his voice and very slowly picked up the book. “The universe is infinite?”
“The Ori are holding you captive,” Morgan shot back calmly.
* * * *
“So we’ve nearly got the shield working,” Vala summarised, looking at Sam.
She nodded tiredly. “A few panels, a few days and it’s all but done. At least our part in it. Then they have to build it and link everything up.”
“Good,” Vala answered with a nod, prodding Sam in the arm. “You need a holiday. Maybe this Jack has a cabin, too.”
Sam raised an eyebrow.
Vala held up her hands. “You’re the one who told me fishing was therapeutic. I took that at face value. If you think about it as a metaphor, I really don’t want to know what for.”
Sam laughed helplessly and handed her the next panel.
* * * *
“You’re going to have to explain that one.” Daniel looked at the ascended being, taking in the non-descript professional suit and the sensibly heeled shoes. “Are you ascended in this reality, or do those just not matter to you?”
“Daniel Jackson, you never could ask the simple questions,” came the reply.
“That’s not an answer, and I think I need some coffee right about now,” Daniel shot back, walking to the café at the back of the bookshop. Asking Morgan what she wanted from the counter, the surreal quality of having coffee with an Ancient known as Morgan Le Fey in the time of King Arthur, in an alternate reality from his own, hit him all over again. He fervently wished his coffee would hurry up.
“I can’t answer your final question,” Morgan answered, pouring two sugars into her latte. “That is for-”
“Forbidden, yes, I expected that,” Daniel broke in, “What about the others?”
She raised an eyebrow and Daniel fought the temptation to let out an ‘oy’ in Jack’s style.
“The other questions, not my team mates or the other ascended beings,” he clarified.
“I can tell you that this is not an alternate reality,” Morgan said intently, gesturing to the bookshop around them.
“Feels pretty ‘alternate’ right now,” Daniel muttered, blinking and meeting her eyes and thinking, thank god the coffee tastes just as strong. “And Sam said there was that inter-dimensional bridge particle…. thing.” At her look as he trailed off, he rolled his eyes and nodded, “Yes, I stopped listening about half way through, can we get to the part where you explain?”
* * * *
“Sam?” Vala called out in the silence of the lab. “Can you have a look at this?”
“What is it?”
“There’s some strange readings coming from this panel.”
Sam stood next to her and watched the readings. “I don’t understand, that wave-form is completely unrelated to the shield technology. There’s no physical reason it would be doing that.”
“What wave-form?”
“I have no idea, but it’s not one we know and it’s not even near the one the shield works on.”
* * * *
Morgan winced sharply, putting two fingers to her temple and shaking it off.
“Are you okay?”
“I am fine, Dr. Jackson,” Morgan answered with a faint frown. “But that was not normal.”
“So-”
“Yes, Dr. Jackson, I am getting to it. Am I permitted a drink of my coffee first?”
Daniel muttered something approaching an apology.
Morgan sat the cup down. “As I was saying, this is not in fact another reality. It is a construct extrapolated by the Ori from your combined memories.”
Daniel sat his cup down very slowly and looked around the room. “Then why can you speak to me? Surely they know what’s going on if they built this. Surely they’re watching. And why would they-”
He stopped when she held up a hand. “Think of this as an enclosure. They are watching, but their attention is currently with Colonel Carter and Vala as they are attempting to-”
“Rebuild the Renasri shield technology,” Daniel finished, feeling the bottom fall out of his stomach and his ears roar. “That’s why they’re doing this – to find a weakness in the shield technology.”
“Or a means of disabling it,” Morgan confirmed. “They engineered a situation from your memories and only specified that you be guided into revealing the shield technology to them.”
“So what about our world? We’ve been gone for months, did they survive the-”
“You have in fact been gone only minutes, Dr. Jackson,” Morgan corrected softly. “You are in an ascended plane of existence, much as Vala was when she addressed the council, but you are in the grip of their technology.”
“They’re manipulating time? Here?” Daniel asked, incredulous.
“They’re manipulating your perception of time. It’s taking them a massive amount of effort to do so, hence why they cannot be watching you at all times, but they’re holding it until they get what they desire from you.”
“I have to call Sam, make her stop working on the shield technology,” Daniel realised after a moment, hand going to his cell phone.
Morgan’s hand on his wrist stopped him. “You cannot draw their attention to my presence here,” she said intently. “It breaks all of our laws governing how we live on this plane.”
“They interfered directly when they abducted us,” Daniel deadpanned, struggling to keep his voice low. “How can the council still be clinging to rules no-one else even pretends to?”
“For once, my supporters and I agree with them,” Morgan answered just as quietly. “The conflict that will occur when we take action against them is going to be cataclysmic.”
“You have to do something!” Daniel almost hissed, remembering at the last moment to remain inconspicuous.
“And we will,” Morgan replied. “However, we need to time it carefully, otherwise we will have an adverse effect on all the other planes of existence.”
“By adverse effect you mean destructive?”
“Yes.”
* * * *
“What’re you doing?” Vala leaned her head close to Sam’s, watching the read outs on the laptop screen.
“Oh, I’m working on trying to get us home, but there’s something here I’m not understanding,” the blonde replied. “You just made me remember something, where I’ve seen that wave-form before – it was just before we were pulled into this reality, when the Ori were attacking Earth.”
“Show me,” Vala answered.
“You see this here, and this?” Sam pointed at power level bars on the screen. “Watch when I do this.”
“It’s a simulation.”
“Yes.”
The two bars didn’t change, despite others around them showing varying levels.
“What does it mean? And what’s it a simulation of?”
“It’s a simulation of what would have happened if we hadn’t been pulled into this reality.”
Vala looked at her. “If this Sam hadn’t been conducting her experiments at the same time? If we’d hooked up the Renasri shield to Merlin’s keyboard?”
Sam nodded, and Vala couldn’t help but ask what the point of the exercise was.
* * * *
As the full reality of the situation descended on Daniel, he struggled to choose which question to ask first.
“Are Sam and Vala-?”
“Yes, they’re real,” Morgan affirmed with a nod.
Daniel looked around the café, seeing the walls as transparent and the people as layers in a thick veil. “Well, it figures they’d have a Starbucks. Explains the lack of fair trade produce,” he couldn’t help but mutter.
“How do we get out? How do we get back?”
Morgan hesitated and then raised her chin, voice resolute. “We start a war that reminds them humans have free will in this galaxy, that it is defended and leaves them far too distracted to keep up this charade.”
* * * *
Sam blushed slightly. “Remember I said it was …messy, risky and might not work at all? The system we rigged up with the particle accelerator?”
Vala nodded with a grin. “Curiosity?”
Sam nodded almost sheepishly, then pointed at the same two bars again. “This is baffling me, though.”
“What exactly do they measure?” Vala asked curiously.
“They monitor the power going to Merlin’s device.”
Sam’s eyes flicked between the readings, the device and Vala’s as the thought, ‘no power went to the device’ flashed across her mind.
Understanding dawned on both at the same time and Vala gripped Sam’s arm hard. “It shouldn’t have worked at all. It shouldn’t have done anything, never mind this.”
“It should have stalled dead,” Sam said in the same instant, eyes wide and flitting around the room in sudden uncertainty. “So where are -?”
White light engulfed the room.
* * * *
Daniel was stunned on too many levels to articulate one in particular. “What can we do to-?”
White light erupted around him.
CHAPTER 20: With My Little “I”
“Vala, Sam?!”
Daniel pounded a fist against the white wall, feeling the dimensions of the small cell with his fingertips.
“We’ve seen people that glow before, you know!” he shouted at the ceiling. “You’re not so special you can’t show yourself.”
No answer came.
“Oh, great,” Daniel muttered, sitting against the wall with a sigh, “I let out my inner Jack and get jack for it.”
“Hey!”
He sat up with a blink. “Jack?”
“Yes,” came the sullen reply, “And I heard that, smart ass.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Daniel replied, smiling slowly.
“How ya been?”
“Pretty good until now. You?”
“Not so bad. We’re playing ‘I Spy’, want to join?”
Daniel raised an eyebrow, looking around his own personal blank, white cell and wondering how bored you had to be to consider ‘I Spy’ before the rest of Jack’s sentence hit him.
“Jack? Are Vala and Sam with you?”
“Sorry, sunshine,” came the reply, “Not with us. Not with you?”
“Mitchell? No, not with me. Where’s Teal’c?”
“I am here, Daniel Jackson.”
Daniel let out a sigh of relief then squinted. “How do I know this isn’t another trick?”
“We’re right here,
He grinned and called through, “I wasn’t talking to you. The Ori have been playing games with the three of us to try and get their hands on the Renasri technology.”
“Are you unharmed, Daniel Jackson?” Teal’c asked quietly.
“Headache, wish I could have finished my coffee and worried about Vala and Sam, but beyond that I’m all right,” Daniel answered, running a hand through his hair.
“You got coffee?!” Jack and Mitchell answered simultaneously.
* * * *
“So…”
“No idea.”
“You don’t know what I was going to ask.”
“I’m pretty sure that would have been the answer.”
Vala grinned and tossed her hair tie at the blonde, who threw it back with a rueful smile.
“I was going to ask if you’ve felt hungry since we’ve been here.”
Sam frowned slightly. “I haven’t, actually. Or thirsty. This is…”
Vala sat forward, eyes lighting up. “Yes?”
“…Weird,” Sam finished with a sheepish smile.
Vala let out a breath and pulled her knees up to her chest. “I’m worried about Daniel,” she admitted.
“He didn’t know-” Sam broke off with a tired smile. “We don’t know what happened. Or why we were… wherever we were. He might not either. The only thing I’m sure about now is that we never left our reality.”
“Then it might be the Ancients, or the Ori who have us here?” Vala thought aloud, before looking away. “He might still be in wonko-land?”
“I don’t know. I have no idea where we are, or who brought us here,” Sam admitted, her voice subdued. As Vala stared at her shoes intently, Sam slid next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.
“Thanks,” Vala said quietly.
“What friends are for, even when it’s all wonko,” Sam answered with a shrug.
* *
* *
“E.”
Daniel knocked his head against the wall. “You know, I shouldn’t really be playing. I’m in a different cell. I’m at a substantial disadvantage seeing as I can’t see your cell.”
“Got any better ideas since they don’t seem to be planning on feeding us?”
“And since we don’t seem to feel the need to eat?” Mitchell added.
“Energy.”
“That is incorrect, Daniel Jackson.”
Daniel knocked his head against the wall again, but found himself flat on his back.
“Sunshine!” Mitchell said with a grin, offering him a hand to sit up.
Rubbing the back of his head, Daniel looked around their cell.
“Any differences?” Jack asked.
“Bit bigger,” he answered, leaning against the wall. “And I have no idea what just happened.”
“Apparently the Ori decided you should be able to play ‘I Spy’ on equal terms with the rest of us,” Mitchell quipped.
Or the Ancients are moving against them and they can’t keep us as separate as they’d like, Daniel thought, but didn’t say aloud in case the Ori were listening and the Ancients hadn’t begun their assault yet. But that would mean they didn’t hear Morgan talking to me… Trying to figure the twists and turns, he leaned his head against the wall and went back to ‘I Spy.’
* * * *
“Twenty questions,” Sam said in the silence. Vala raised her head and tilted it. “You haven’t played twenty questions?”
Vala shook her head. “Is this a bad time to mention I don’t like small spaces?”
“Daniel told me that, once,” Sam answered thoughtfully, then paused.
Vala narrowed her eyes and smiled slowly. “If you’re thinking you shouldn’t have said that then I want to hear the whole story. Twenty questions can wait.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “He called me at Area 51 while you were
stuck together. He mentioned you’d said that at
“Well, at least this ceiling isn’t coming in on top of us,” Vala retorted then put a hand over her mouth. Both women looked at the ceiling suspiciously before Vala let out a sigh of relief. “Sorry, I just don’t have much luck when it comes to timing.”
“Then you’re on the right team,” Sam replied with a grin.
“So, this ‘Twenty Questions.’ How do we play?”
* * * *
“Effervescent.”
“Not allowed,” Jack replied quickly, looking at Teal’c.
“Also incorrect, Colonel Mitchell.”
“Why not allowed?” Daniel asked, curious. “I know it’s an adjective, but it could have been ‘effervescent light.’”
“It’s not allowed because I don’t understand what it means,” Jack shot back.
There was a beat of silence before Daniel turned to Teal’c, “Enamel?”
* * * *
“Just so we’re clear, complicated physics is off-limits for you if non-Earth things are off-limits for me?”
“Deal.”
“Is it… an animal?”
“No.”
“Is it edible?”
“Depends what it’s made of.”
Vala raised an eyebrow.
“We agreed we were keeping this PG-rated, remember?” Sam said hurriedly, a hint of colour rising to her cheeks.
Vala grinned. “I never agreed to that.”
* * * *
“Teal’c, it is a word in English, right?”
He raised an eyebrow, “Yes, Daniel Jackson.”
“Because we’re only playing in English, right?” Mitchell
added, looking intently around the cell at the others. “Else when it’s
“You mean we haven’t been already?” Jack retorted, looking around at the white walls. “Besides, most of Daniel’s languages don’t use our alphabet anyway.”
“But then it depends whether we’re going by how it’s written or the phonetics,” Daniel replied, sitting up, “Because any language spoken by humans uses the same basic set of sounds, including the ‘e’ vowel sound-”
“I spy with my little eye,” Teal’c interrupted as the others groaned, “Something beginning with E…”
* * * *
“How many questions do I have left?”
“Five.”
“Do moths eat it?”
Sam blinked. “No. Yes. Yes, moths eat them.”
“Can you keep an Ipod in it?”
“You’ve got four questions and you’re asking that? Yes.”
“Ha!” Vala said triumphantly, “It’s a sock!”
Sam grinned sheepishly. “Yes, it’s a sock.”
“That’s two items, you know,” Vala pointed out, “A pair of socks.”
“But you get odd socks,” Sam retorted. “Maybe I was talking about an odd sock.”
“
“And where can I buy edible socks?”
“Did I say it was edible?”
“Yes… You said it depended what it was made of.”
“Well, you could get edible socks.”
“You could get edible-anything by that logic, Sam.”
“So we’re limiting ‘edible’ to what is normally edible?”
* * * *
“I just don’t see why it has to be an object, Jack,” Daniel replied heatedly. “How many objects can you see in here?”
“That’s not the point,” Jack shot back huffily. “It’s the rules. Adjectives don’t count.”
“Oh that’s just plain silly.”
“Jackson, sir!” Mitchell intervened. “We still haven’t figured out what starts with E.”
* * * *
“We could play ‘Twenty Questions’ again,” Vala suggested, catching the hair tie as Sam threw it across the cell.
“How about ‘I Spy’?” Sam asked, tossing it back and clapping in-between to up the difficulty. “And one-handed next time.”
“Who would play ‘I Spy’ in a place like this? They’d have to be quite unintelligent,” Vala asked incredulously, catching the tie in her left hand and throwing it back.
“Pat your head with the hand you aren’t using on the next one.”
* * * *
“I’m sorry, Jack, that just happens to be how I feel about it!”
“Well, I’m sorry, Daniel, but you’re wrong.”
“How can I be wrong about the rules of ‘I Spy’? Do you have the rule book?”
“Of course I don’t have the rule book, there is no rule book-”
“So how can I be wrong?”
“Because adjectives don’t count!”
Mitchell moved out of the middle as they began to debate semantics and sat next to Teal’c. “Are they always like this?”
“Indeed.”
“Can you tell me what starts with ‘E’?”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow. “You have not yet guessed the answer, Colonel Mitchell.”
* * * *
“Okay, so the reef knot is like this?” Vala asked, holding up the two bits of broken hair tie.
“That’s it,” Sam affirmed, sitting cross-legged opposite her and taking the tie. “This one sailors used-”
Sam broke off as a door formed in opposing wall of their cell.
“We were too annoying to keep?” Vala said in a low voice.
“They figured out we wouldn’t talk about the shield no matter how long they kept us here?”
Sam stood and offered Vala a hand. “Anywhere’s better than here.”
They found themselves in a dark corridor. Vala shrugged and fell into step behind Sam. A few minutes of tense silence later, Sam held up a closed fist. “You hear that?”
“Sounds like voices,” Vala whispered in reply. She leaned down and pressed her ear against the wall.
“Elephant, Mitchell?! You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Better than yours. How exactly would you see an epiphany? Watch Teal’c meditate?”
Vala and Sam exchanged grins.
“Right, so how do we break this wall?” Vala asked brightly.
“I believe I can help,” Morgan replied, stepping out of the shadows.
“You opened the cell?” Sam asked, smiling at the tired and robed woman.
She nodded.
“Do the Ancients or the Ori have us?” Vala asked intently.
“The Ori,” came the reply, “So we must leave here quickly.”
“Right,” Vala answered with a nod, pausing. “How do we do that?”
Morgan closed her eyes and let out a breath before nodding to them.
Vala exchanged a look with Sam before waving her hand in the space Morgan had indicated.
* * * *
“An elephant wouldn’t even fit in this room, whether it was a baby or not,” Daniel shot back, even managing to sound slightly hurt. “And an epiphany was a good guess, I thought.”
“I concur, Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c put in, inclining his head, “It is, however, incorrect.”
“Well, how about-”
Daniel broke off, seeing a familiar hand waving in the air and seemingly independent of its usually accompanying body. Hand shaking very slightly, he intertwined his fingers with those in the air, wrapping his hand around hers when she jumped at his touch.
“Daniel?!”
Daniel saw her hand slide down to his wrist and wrap around it, then felt himself being tugged through the wall.
They fell to the floor in the dark corridor in a tangle of limbs, laughing. “I didn’t know you were sitting down,” Vala gasped out, laughing and kissing him.
“I didn’t know you were standing up!”
Daniel turned his head a moment later to glare at Jack, standing and helping Vala to her feet. “You could at least pretend it’s a real cough.”
“Well, you know, universe to save, all that fun.”
“That one just doesn’t get old, does it?”
“No, not really.”
Vala grinned at them.
“Can we…” They looked at Mitchell. “I’m glad everyone’s okay, but can we do the hugging thing later?”
“That would be wise,” Morgan put in with a smile.
“Thank you,” Daniel said, noticing the Ancient for the first time.
“We owe you one,” Jack added.
“One thing,” Vala asked as the group began to walk down the corridor, “You were playing ‘I Spy’?”
“Em, yeah,” Mitchell answered with a glare at Jack and Daniel.
“Something beginning with ‘E’,” Teal’c added helpfully.
“Eggshell white,” Sam and Vala answered at the same time.
Teal’c smiled and inclined his head. “That is indeed correct.”
Jack and Daniel, having stopped a few steps behind, shared a glance.
“But it’s an adjective!”
Daniel smiled cautiously and shrugged. “It looked more like apple white to me…”
CHAPTER 21: Currents
“Stand where you are.
We let all these
moments pass us by.
This is ours just for a
moment,
There’s a lot that we can give.”
- Vega4
Daniel watched her take Ghannis’ hand and felt his stomach flip. Not in the way it had that first time he’d woken up beside her, staring at her with rapt attention as she blinked slowly into waking, or even the time he’d first seen her swaggering next to the briefing room table and remembered the press of her lips against his. Not every time she walked into a room, or he walked into one she happened to be in. This was an entirely different sensation, one nowhere near so pleasant.
It was watching her sink to the floor again, watching her slice open her palms to allow blood into a machine; it was seeing an empty floor where her shaking form had been. It was sitting on a wooden bench, calling her name on the radio, and getting no reply. It was waking up from dreams at his desk because she wasn’t back. It was all of them, none of them, worse than them and a thousand times sharper.
He’d thought it couldn’t get worse. They’d been running along the corridors to some unknown door Ghannis had promised would lead them back to normal time and home. They’d been running, one and all, feet pounding in an out of synch rhythm numbing to mind and body. They’d felt it as one, the earth, the corridor, the ceiling – the very air around them fragmenting. Then, as sharply as a kick to the gut, it had reformed into a grey room; a box with a door on one side. Ghannis shouted, they ran. One foot in front of the other, individuals acting as one in a synthesis of old habits and new to throw themselves through the doorway too narrow for one.
Renasri, Daniel had thought. Renasri. They were back – it was in the mud on his face, it was in the ground beneath his feet, it was in the rough cold wind that harassed him. A beat of silence after an eternity of rushing, no one saw it coming.
It was the ultimate intervention and wiped every form of thought from his mind; a firecracker of a shot across the limbo of the square.
That was when his stomach sank, flipped, twisted, wrenched and possibly did the hokey kokey in a second-long instant. The snapshot burnt into his mind – she blinked, she staggered a little, she frowned. Looking down, she crumpled with a hand clasped over a flowing wound. His body moved beyond his control, going to her side and re-enacting film scenes without realising. A hand around her back yanked her roughly to rest on his knee, a palm on her cheek dragged her eyes to his and a thumb took away the blasphemy that was the trickle of blood from her mouth.
Jack was shouting. Ghannis was murmuring insistently under her breath and frowning. Sam was at her other side, Cam passing her bandages and gently removing her hand from on top of that too quick current flowing from her wound, through the rain and into the puddles of the rainy street. Teal’c was kicking the Ori foot-soldier responsible across the face and turning his staff on him with the offhand air of someone with more important things to do.
Daniel noticed all that. Disconnected from his emotions, numb to the core, he registered it all with the minute observance of a drunk who knows they’re pissed but that doesn’t make their legs go in the right direction – or the same direction – and can only wish it’s going to be a hazy blur in the morning. He knew with perfect certainty he’d remember it for the rest of his natural life, that sensation of his stomach falling away. He’d remember the colour of her eyes as they blinked languidly, and the sight of her cheek discoloured by the watered-down blood from her body but marking both his skin and hers. There was nothing transcendent, sanguine, tranquil or peaceful about the scene. Her body rocked under the pain of the staff blast in her side, her throat was making inhuman sounds, her eyes were wide and rolled up into her lids. Then she took deep shuddering breaths and focussed, only for another wave of pain to hit her and the whole cycle to begin again.
Daniel knew his breath was ragged, his hair was wet, that the rain on his cheeks wasn’t really rain, that he was screaming at people to do something and that nothing except time was going fast enough. Sam’s hands seemed to blur in the air but it wasn’t stopping the red seeping into his BDUs, she was looking at him with wide eyes and shaking her head. Jack was in the background, having a screaming match with Ghannis about whether they should maintain the limbo for the moment or not, but Daniel didn’t understand nor care. They weren’t talking about how to save Vala, and that meant it wasn’t important.
She was kicking, her legs jerking as her body shook and contorted. They had no morphine, they had nothing except the impromptu strips of cloth Sam was applying. Daniel put both hands on her cheeks, forcing her to look at him and speaking even though he didn’t know what he was saying. She’d hear what he meant, not what he said. She took deep breaths, slower and slower. She sat a little closer and held a little tighter. She noticed what he didn’t, when Sam ceded to the gentle hand on her shoulder and Ghannis sat beside her.
Daniel heard the first question and froze, feeling his own limbs shake. Vala looked between them, gasping and frowning, as though conscious thought had become an effort she didn’t quite have enough left for. She held his eyes for a long moment, and Daniel became aware of the fact that he was no longer disconnected. Everything narrowed to the look in her eyes, and which way it seemed to be tipping on the bloody knife edge.
She laughed, a gurgling sound mingled with a cough and a gasp. Daniel fought the knowledge of what he was sure he now knew the way she fought for another breath.
Vala’s hand slapped onto his cheek and held his gaze. “I’ve turned into a bit of a Beth anyway. Might as well go the distance.”
“You’ll come back,” Daniel said softly, nodding.
“I’ll keep my promise.”
Daniel’s eyebrows came together and he shook his head. “That’s not a yes.”
Vala smiled almost cheekily. “I said I’d never give you one.”
“Try to come back.” It was a demand, made in a child’s voice.
“Try to save the galaxy.” It was a demand.
Forehead to forehead, his lips to hers, his hand in hers and his arm around her, Daniel met her eyes once and took the same deep breath she did, eyes falling closed when hers did. He’d held her to him while her back arched before. His arm tightened as her last, ragged breath faded. There was nothing calm about it, it was a frantic last grasp before he fell forward into the Renasri mud, his forehead connecting with nothing as his arms emptied into the air. He opened his eyes, blinded and surrounded by a white mist both hot and cold, both light and dark. Tendrils of light danced across his shoulders, his vision, his cheek and his hands. He fell back onto the street, distantly hearing the earthly and wet thump as he watched that spirit he’d held drift into the clouds above.
One blind look at Ghannis, one acquiescence to Jack and Sam’s strength as they hauled him up to standing, and he was running again. This time, it was a blur. Symbols in the DHD, a wavering flash of blue, a steel room with sirens and guns he’d never thought to see again.
You chose ascension
over death. What if she did the same? Could you blame her? Could you be unhappy
that she’s still out there, alive in some form, even if she’s not with you?
The thought flashed through his mind like an eagle’s scream in an empty canyon, ringing, piercing, forceful and then gone. Yes, yes, and no. The answers weren’t in his over-thinking, incessantly analysing mind but in the sinking feeling in his gut as he ran a hand along the bed cover, as he instinctively reached for the third bottle in the shower, running off the mud from light years away. Yes, she’d done the same. They’d cheated, they’d brought in a foot-soldier when they couldn’t catch them in their world. Yes, he could blame her. He couldn’t really, he’d agreed, he’d told her to go with his heart in his eyes and his stomach in his feet, but he was angry and irrationally so. There was no guarantee she’d come back. There was no guarantee she could. Of every fool's chance-
He broke off the thought, forcing himself to remember the 'fool's chances' that had brought him to where he stood, a bit bashed but more or less intact.
It's never been so
hard before.
It's never mattered so
much before.
He put his head against the cold tiles, feeling his every muscle clench and the knots in his neck tug. He could blame her for not being there, for being imprinted on his every thought and being embedded in his every plan, moment, thought and feeling. He could blame her for being ripped out of his life in spectacular, ugly form. He could blame her for fighting to hold on, for the apology in her eyes she had no right to give him as she took one last breath and tightened her fingers around his. He could be unhappy she wasn’t there, he could be damn angry that something else had gotten in the way. He could stand on the edge of the shower, the cold hitting his body as he grabbed a towel, and blame her.
But when he looked in the mirror, looked over his shoulder at the blank tiles and saw a handprint illuminated in the condensation that was far smaller than his own, he couldn’t not stand close to it and study it. He couldn’t not place his own larger hand over it, hearing the thud as he slammed the side of his fist into the tile above it. And when his imagination chose to conjure the feeling of her palm on top of his hand, when the hot water hit a small remainder of her shower gel dried onto the bottle, steeping the bathroom in something so irredeemably hers - he found himself unable to keep his eyes from the ceiling, hoping that somewhere she was doing what was right and trying to find her way back.
CHAPTER 22: Lavinia
Author’s Note: All lyrics thieved from the Veils, and the title as well.
“Berenice,
My hands and feet are worn,
As much as yours are,
And though my head, my hands, my heart are forming,
They still feel worlds apart.”
“Daniel.”
“Jack.”
“Open the door. Doc says she needs to see you. And we’ve got a world to save.”
“Try to save the
galaxy.” It was a demand.
“Give me a minute.”
A slightly hesitant pause. “You’ve had an hour.”
“Jack, do you want me to come out there in nothing but a towel?”
Another pause, then a slightly quieter, “He’ll be out in a minute, doc.”
* * * *
“You sure you can do this?”
Daniel didn’t answer beyond a tight nod and, “How are we doing?”
“I’m headed to the chair base in a few minutes. Odyssey will beam me up and drop me off.”
Daniel looked at him out of the corner of his eye as they walked through the SGC corridors. “We’re actually going to call it that? Beaming?”
“Why not? It’s what it is,” Jack replied.
“You hate scifi,” Daniel retorted with a shade of a smile.
Jack winced. “Harriman started it. I think we’re stuck with it.”
Daniel smiled. “Well, if we’re going to rip off scifi, we might as well do it right.” Jack looked at him but didn’t comment. Daniel shrugged, voice asking him not to ask. “Jack.”
“Daniel,” Jack sighed, stopping before they reached the control room. “You’re not absolutely needed here. If you don’t want to, don’t.”
“She’ll come back,” Daniel shrugged. “I have to believe that.”
“She’s an awful lot like you, you know,” Jack commented. “Pain in the ass, too smart in the mouth – and you keep coming back, like that dead Russian guy.” He smacked him lightly on the arm. “If nothing else, Daniel, they’ll probably kick her out faster than you.”
Daniel grinned helplessly. “It’s Rasputin. And they killed him eventually, Jack, so that’s not that comforting.”
“I thought he died of old age,” Jack asked, puzzled.
“No, Jack, he really didn’t.”
Jack paused. “So how-”
“Poisoned, shot four times, beaten and thrown into a frozen lake to die of hypothermia,” Daniel answered offhandedly, ticking them off on his fingers.
“Then that’s not really comforting at all,” Jack replied. “But think about it. Between the two of us, and your girlfriend, we’ve survived more than that.”
“See, Jack, that’s comforting,” Daniel smiled.
“Don’t mention it,” Jack retorted as they entered the control room.
* * * *
Daniel stood next to Jack and fought the wave of nausea as the bright light of the beaming technology surrounded him.
It was supposed to be instantaneous, but there seemed to be a slight lag as the chair room formed around them.
“Where are we?” Daniel shouted, recognising the signs of tampering.
He spun at the sound of a soft voice in his ear belonging to Ghannis La’al. “Where you are needed. As is she.”
Daniel shared a look with Jack and rolled his eyes as Jack helped him to his feet. “Nice and vague.”
Jack shrugged, sitting at the foot of the chair and waving in a young officer. “You expected less?”
“Sir?”
“I need a direct line to the SGC and the Renasri, ASAP,” Jack ordered, “And what’s our status?”
* * * * * *
Sam worked quickly, disconnecting a power wire from the phase shift keyboard. “It won’t work.”
“How do you-”
“Just trust me,” Sam answered, nodding to the scientist and beginning to pull apart keyboards. “Time for Plan B.”
* * * *
“You want to do what?!”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow.
* * * *
“Sam, can we do this?” Jack asked via the line to the SGC.
“Colonel Carter,” Landry’s voice called through the base intercom. “Status?”
“We have a new plan, sir,” Sam replied from her desk, quickly disassembling and reshuffling panels.
“A new plan?”
“A better plan,” Daniel put in helpfully.
“A better plan,” Landry rejoined, voice doubtful. “A quicker plan?”
“Need time, sir,” Sam answered.
“We do not have time, Colonel.”
“Well Hank, this wouldn’t have worked anyway, so it’s kind of the only plan,” Jack put in, rolling his eyes. There was a beat of silence.
“How much time?”
* * * *
Jack took a deep breath and met Daniel’s eyes. “Looks like it’s my turn.”
Daniel nodded and watched Jack sit in the control chair, watching his eyes empty and close as the chair slid back and lit up.
He turned as Ghannis appeared behind him.
“We’re ready to begin our main offensive.”
Daniel opened his mouth and Ghannis held up a hand. “I cannot speak about her.”
He forced himself to be calm, since the being in front of him was non-corporeal and his fist wouldn’t touch her anyway.
Daniel raised an eyebrow. “You mean the one that threw us back here wasn’t it?”
Ghannis smiled sadly. “That was a minor collision.”
“What about this plane of existence?” Daniel asked quietly.
Ghannis shook her head. “We have no idea what is about to happen.”
“How is that poss-”
“This has never been attempted in the history of time,” Ghannis broke in. “No ascended being has ever made war on another, and certainly not on this scale. This could be the end of all things, or it could pass unnoticed. We simply do not know. It will take a few of your weeks for us to prepare.”
* * * * * *
Sam shook her head and
“The drones are holding them for the moment, Colonel,” came the report, “But the more power the chair uses-”
“The less we have for the shield,” Sam finished.
“Doesn’t this,”
“We don’t really have time for experiments right now,
* * * *
“Oh, well, I’m glad we’re clear on the possible extinction of all life,” Daniel couldn’t help but snap back. He took a step back as Ghannis hissed, then stepped forward as she paled and put a hand to her head. She held out a hand.
“I have no idea what Colonel Carter is doing, but if she does not stop our forces will be immobilised.”
Daniel put his hand through hers and saw the white light flash around him.
* * * *
Sam picked up the nine mil and pointed it at the fading spot of white on her vision, only letting go of it when she felt a familiar hand on her wrist. Blinking away the flash, she met Daniel’s eyes with a grin. “What’re you doing here?”
“Think that’s what she wants to ask you,” Daniel shot back with a look at Ghannis.
“We have the shield ready to go when the power from the ZPM is ready,” Sam put in from the desk, “We’re just waiting. In the meantime, we’re trying to figure out what this is.”
“Spare parts from the shield,”
“Spare,” Daniel said with a nod, looking at the large number of bits of circuitry. “And how did you rig up the shield so quickly?”
Sam grinned a little wickedly. “The Ori gave us all the time we needed to work out exactly what to do with all the bits.”
Daniel bit back a laugh. “That was nice of them.”
Ghannis ran a finger along the edge of one of the parts. As Sam took a screwdriver to a circuit board, she winced in pain. Sam looked up sharply.
Daniel looked between them, then walked to the desk. “Sam, you said the shield wasn’t actually that complicated a piece of technology.”
Ghannis was staring at the circuitry with wide eyes. “I must be going,” she said sharply, then faded from sight.
“Well that was weird,”
Five minutes later, the green light for the shield was given. After a breathless moment, Sam let out a sigh of relief.
“It’s up and running,” she reported.
“How long can it hold?” Daniel asked.
“The ZPM will last until the power grids are up and tied in,” Sam answered with a small smile, looking at the stool next to her.
“Déjà vu?” Daniel commented quietly. Sam nodded and Daniel let out a sigh.
“Now we just get to explain where we were,” Sam replied. She
looked at Daniel, and spoke in unison with
“Thanks,” Daniel replied dryly.
* * * *
“Berenice,
Beneath it all you're golden,
And that's all I'm feeding on,
And though my head, my hands are growing colder,
We move in circles now.
Berenice,
There's no release at all,
That's not worth dying for,
And it's not for our desires but our design that we all fall apart.”
Daniel left the briefing room, the decision to send them back to the Renasri made. They would try to figure out what the extra parts of the shield did, and continue the research they’d begun. The original plan, hopefully, would still be possible.
Back where they’d started, he thought, with Vala missing and an invasion on their hands. His mind refused to write her off as gone – he knew better, he was living proof of knowing better. She’d come back from the edge before.
Sam watched him go and shared a look with the other exhausted members of the team, knowing how the next few weeks until the war really began would play out. Daniel would quietly, diligently, move through his work and his life. He’d wordlessly spend every minute in his office or wherever he made on with the Renasri until late at night, sometimes sleeping there without really meaning to. He’d be a competent ghost and shell, and there wasn’t a lot they could do about it. She met Jack’s eyes over the table.
“I’ll come through and check in with you through there.”
Sam nodded.
“I’m kind of glad we’re going,”
“I don’t want to be here during the fall out,” Sam admitted.
Jack rolled his eyes. “Lucky for some.”
“Satellite attack wouldn’t float, sir?”
Jack sighed. “Not this time.”
“Things are going to change,”
CHAPTER 23: World Spins Madly On
Vala kicked against him and found herself drifting, still kicking and clawing to get back to solid ground. In a sensation akin to falling through open black space, hurtling gently but pulled undeniably to a destination, she found her vision dimming.
She struggled against hands seeking to calm her. Jerking into wakefulness, she saw unfamiliar faces in linen standing around her. She blinked and fought to an alert state. Grabbing the first hand she could see, she met Ghannis’ eyes.
“Did they save the planet?”
An officious council member Vala vaguely recognised looked at her loftily, “You need to put your former existence into a proper context.”
“I don’t do proper anything,” Vala shot back harshly, turning to Ghannis. When the councillor made more noises, Vala held up a hand. “In a minute.”
“They gained a reprieve,” Ghannis told her quietly, sadly.
“What was the cost?” Vala asked, feeling the blood drain from her cheeks. The councillor’s movements stirred her attention to the edge of her vision. She turned and fixed her with a glare. “Still not a minute.”
“One blast reached the planet. Many were killed, and the secrecy of your stargate is gone,” Ghannis answered. “Your friends survived.”
Vala let out a sigh of relief and tried not to think about the wreckage they’d survived to live in. Nodding, she sunk back into the pillows and let sleep take her.
Indeterminate hours later, the last thing she expected to wake up to was a fierce argument. At least, one she wasn’t a participant in.
“Yes, you simply had to-”
“Yes, I did. Well spotted, councillor.”
“She’s one of them, and our strictest laws-”
“She earned it.”
“If she had earned it, she would have been here without help!”
“They don’t have what we had – being one of many in the plague or the isolation of a hermitage. They’re still connected to the world they inhabit and you’ll forgive me if I cannot damn them for it as quickly as you do.”
“The council will decide on the matter of forgiveness.”
A door slammed, and Vala felt it safe to peek through barely open eyelids. Seeing Ghannis La’al looking at her in faint amusement, she sat up. Whatever she’d been expecting, an open planned apartment similar to Daniel’s was not it.
“So they don’t want me here. That’s good. I don’t want to be here. When can we make everyone happy?” As Ghannis opened her mouth to reply, Vala remembered the slight manners she possessed. “Not that I’m not grateful. But-”
“You chose this,” Ghannis answered quietly.
“Yes,” Vala retorted, still wearing the same tense smile. “Because this way was better than no way. Now, I’d like to go home. And by now, I do mean right now.”
Ghannis sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. This isn’t just about a way to circumvent death.” She raised an eyebrow. “Even if you and Daniel are content to abuse it in such a manner.”
“Only twice… each,” Vala began to defend but ended up conceding. “Oma liked him.”
“She knew he could never adjust to life here,” Ghannis said with a small smile. “He would not be who he is if he could.”
Vala nodded, smiling just a little proudly. She turned serious. “Then you know I won’t, either.” An edge of panic entered her voice. “Let’s face it, I’m going to annoy you all to a second slow death.”
“You just need to-”
Ghannis was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“If Vala is awake-” a voice said softly, stopping. Vala saw a man with tawny brown hair and high cheekbones smile. “You are awake. You might regret that decision.”
“I wasn’t aware it was a decision,” Vala replied more sharply than she’d intended, looking at Ghannis. “Who is he?”
Ghannis smiled. “He’s not an imbecile, don’t worry. Janis, Vala Mal Doran.”
He held out a hand with a slight smile. Vala huffed, crossed her arms and turned away. Janis looked at Ghannis in bafflement before recovering.
“You were saying?” Ghannis intervened.
“Ah… yes.” Janis turned to Vala, “You’ve been summoned before the council.”
“Again?” Vala asked, surprised out of her pout.
“This time you’ve earned your place at that gathering,” Ghannis reminded her.
“You appear as one of us,” Janis added. “For however long you are, you are one of us.”
“Does that mean they have to be nice to me?” Vala asked incredulously.
Ghannis and Janis exchanged glances. “Not exactly.”
* * * *
It started as well as the previous gathering, but Vala was infinitely glad of Ghannis and Janis’ presence at either side. She didn’t know why Janis had chosen to stand with her, but she wasn’t complaining.
“She’s earned it,” Ghannis repeated in another justification of why Vala hadn’t been allowed to merely die on a Renasri street. “And they flouted the rules. Her death would have been an inexcusable intervention.”
“Her aided ascension is,” came the interruption.
Another councillor took up the thread. “The rules against such acts are jointly agreed upon. They exist for a reason.”
“If the rules are jointly agreed, then why do the Ori have a religion based almost entirely on the premise of aiding ascension?” Janis put in quietly, tone amused and failing to hide it.
The ensuing silence was absolute. Vala fought a grin, she suspected she was unsuccessful.
“The basic fact is that the Ori have forsaken all the rules you so dearly cling to,” Janis continued in the same mild tone. “If they had been allowed to commit murder, we would have been pulled into a galactic war we simply are not ready to wage.”
“They already have committed murder,” Vala put in, realising all heads turned to her. “Or am I the only one who remembers the Ori soldier that shot me? Indirect or not, that was murder.”
The council exchanged uncomfortable glances and the debate raged on.
* * * *
“So tell me,” Vala asked Ghannis, sinking into the couch in her light ash room. “Why you didn’t raise the possibility of sending me back? The council seemed more than happy to be rid of me, and I haven’t really earned the right to be here.”
“And you hate it already,” Ghannis added, amused, and sighed.
“And I hate it here already,” Vala nodded with a brief grin. “Present company excluded.”
Janis waved a hand idly in her direction from his position hunched over papers at the kitchen table. Somehow Vala’s apartment had become base of operations. The gesture was so similar that it ripped into her gut, bringing home the fact that were she not so very attached to where she’d been, she wouldn’t have hated where she was that much. Wearing white all the time had its (few) advantages. Looking away with bright eyes, she took a deep breath. At a very slight and hesitant touch on her arm, she looked at Ghannis, voice hoarse and smile vanishing. “Send me home. Please.”
Ghannis nodded. “I will. I will help you go back, but first I need your help.”
Vala blinked. “You didn’t just bring me here because I would be dead otherwise?”
“I didn’t,” Ghannis confirmed. “But I suspect I could not have stood by in any case. Beyond that, I trust you and I have need of your assistance.”
“What’re we doing?” Vala asked after a moment.
“How do you feel about finishing the war with the Ori and disobeying the council in every way?” Janis asked from the table.
“We’re not technically disobeying,” Ghannis interjected in a long-suffering tone.
“But they would almost certainly forbid it if they knew about it,” Janis retorted.
“So this is… secret? Underhand?” Vala asked, slowly drawing her knees up to her chest and looking at Ghannis earnestly. “Perhaps even … sneaky?”
Ghannis sent Janis a worried look. “It is secret, yes.”
Vala pursed her lips and nodded. “Among my many talents,” she said seriously, “I happen to be an accomplished thief, liar and con artist.”
“So you’ll help?”
Vala met Ghannis’ eyes. “Evade the council, undermine the Ori, help you, go home and all in sneaky, conspiratorial manner?” She grinned suddenly. “Sounds exactly like my kind of fun.”
* * * *
“You’re the pretext,” Janis explained.
“And here I am thinking my strength lay in subtext,” Vala quipped, happy to be doing something. Ghannis hid a small smile. Under Janis’ withering glare, Vala coughed slightly. “Please, continue.”
“We have information we need to get to the lower plane, and we-” Janis indicated Ghannis and himself, “Are too well known as sympathisers. Also, we have no reason to be on that plane.”
“And mine are so well hidden,” Vala remarked, puzzled.
“But despite all evidence to the contrary, they still underestimate you and choose to believe that you will act selfishly if given the option,” Ghannis explained. “They also believe you are … somewhat unintelligent, since your views concur so resoundingly with Daniel’s.”
“They think I’m Daniel’s puppet?” Vala deadpanned, highly unamused.
“More like mouthpiece,” Janis put in.
“Not helping,” Vala shot back without looking at him. She took a breath and raised her chin in a martyred manner, flicking her hair over one shoulder. “We can use that. Even if they are truly idiots.”
Ghannis and Janis shared a look of amusement. “To plotting?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call it that,” Ghannis murmured.
“It’s what it is, isn’t it?” Janis defended.
“Yes, but we shouldn’t call it that.”
* * * *
They stood in the entrance hall to the auditorium, Vala pacing nervously.
“Out of interest, what do we do if this works?”
“It won’t,” Ghannis and Janis replied in unison.
“It involves effort,” Janis added reassuringly.
“But if it does-”
“Then we have yet another problem,” Ghannis admitted.
“Then I’ll just have to be as obnoxious as I possibly can,” Vala grinned.
* * * *
“I object!” Vala announced, borrowing from every insipid courtroom drama she’d ever watched in a post-mission stupor.
“Now, really?” Janis remarked in a low voice from his seat to her right.
“Shut up,” Vala muttered out of the corner of her mouth tersely, slightly manic smile unwavering.
“You object,” the councillor repeated disbelievingly, “To the opening of session?”
“Yes,” Vala nodded, stepping out of her row and adopting a whimsical tone. “It’s an utter waste of time, and I simply have better things to do and more exciting places to be.”
The councillors looked at each other in something like abject disgust.
“I object,” Vala continued, “To the very existence of a body so indecisive it can’t decide whether it even wants to start or not.”
“You’re the one holding up proceedings,” the councillor protested.
“Exactly!” Vala turned with a bright grin. “And aren’t I one of you, and a member of this body?” She looked at her nails as though considering a manicure, tilting her head and raising her eyes to the gathered, muttering crowd. “I really think we should all just go home.”
Glancing around the shocked gathering, a councillor looked down her nose at Vala. “You seem to have a talent for creating silence in this chamber.”
Vala grinned as if she’d been highly complimented. “I have many talents.”
“What I think Vala is trying to say,” Janis hurriedly intervened, “Is that she would like to move for a vote of no confidence in the presiding council. Or if she isn’t, I am.”
“Exactly!” Vala affirmed again, nodding and pointing to Janis. “What he said.”
“I think we can take that as seconded,” Janis remarked dryly. He looked at the rest of the rows. “We now put it to a vote.”
“And if you simply can’t agree that this lot of airheaded, sheltered, superior, incompetent imbeciles should be removed, you’ll just have to send me back!” Vala declared over-dramatically and in one breath.
“Can we get on with the vote?” Ghannis asked with a smile.
* * * *
Vala sank into the couch again, both comforted and unnerved by even the grooves in the cushions being the same as the one in Daniel’s apartment. Ghannis, looking only slightly less stunned, sat with scarcely more grace than Vala.
“Well, that was unexpected,” Vala announced after a pause.
“I don’t think that could actually have gone worse,” Ghannis responded numbly.
“Strange,” Janis remarked with an insufferably bright grin, “I was going to say the exact opposite.”
“You are joking,” Ghannis deadpanned. “Do you have any idea what this means for us?”
“Oh,” Janis drew out the syllable and sat forward. “No more clandestine jaunts to the other planes, no more flouting of the rules? We lose our lofty positions as pretentious, contentious outsiders?”
“Councillors,” Ghannis agreed, almost spitting the word. “I don’t want this.”
“I don’t think you have much of a choice,” Vala reminded her, prodding her in the arm.
Ghannis looked at the prodding hand and then the grin attached to it. “And do not make me list the reasons why I am unhappy with you. How could you vote for me?”
“What are you going to do, send me back? I’m terrified,” Vala retorted. She grinned and looked at them. “So that’s stage one of our evil plot to change the galaxy. What’s next? And please tell me it involves me wearing colours.”
CHAPTER 24: A Long Time in Coming
“I tried to tell you
before I left,
I was screaming under
my breath,
You are the only thing
that makes sense,
Just ignore all this
present tense.”
-Snow Patrol
“No, go back,” Vala shook her head. “I’m not Sam, so you’re going to have to explain that again.” She paused and tilted her head. “Perhaps more than once.”
“Leaving the technology aside for now,” Janis clarified with a teasing smile, “We have influence, but we don’t rule the council.”
“Give it time,” Vala remarked with a grin, “But what does this have to do with saving the galaxy and getting me home?”
“We’ve convinced our fellow councillors,” Ghannis appeared to wince whilst speaking, “that your presence here is not necessary and that you deserve to return to your own path. And ‘time’ has everything to do with it.”
“You’ll retain your memories for a short time,” Janis explained, “Our ability to hold that off is limited. You must get it done before that time is up.”
“Because you can’t remind me,” Vala nodded slowly, “And it has to be done before the attack.”
“Absolutely,” Ghannis confirmed, “It is no longer only the fate of the galaxy or planes of existence at risk but existence itself through the Ori’s recklessness.”
“I know,” Vala answered tentatively, “It’s strange, but I know that.”
* * * *
Daniel didn’t protest being given the same room in the Renasri capital as his previous visit, not entirely sure whether he welcomed the almost-familiarity or felt unsettled by the memories it stirred. He still wanted nothing more than to settle down and weep, for the listless uncertainty if nothing else, but he was still under that same promise. The thought was nowhere more potent than in the room they’d made it.
Sam was in the lab, studying the device – the one she suspected to be broken apart and hidden within the shield generator, in a move that tallied with Merlin’s iconic deviousness. She still didn’t know what it did, but she was sure it was important.
Important or not, it didn’t give Daniel anything to do.
Neatly side-lined out of the rebuilding effort, politely declined a chance at the Renasri fighting style, he’d found himself outside Sam’s lab. She’d winced and told him it wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the offer, but he might want to come back another day. He hadn’t taken the hint, and she’d explained – another day, one in which she wasn’t cleaning Vala’s dried blood out of complicated electronics.
He sighed and sat down anyway.
“Why was that needed, again?”
Sam blinked, then smiled softly. “The rhythm of a heartbeat is one catalyst, and somehow the heat and flow of the blood is another. It bridges the gap between the priest-goat and the machine.”
“Then how did the Ancients hold it?” Daniel asked, curiosity piqued.
“Sheer power?” Sam suggested with a shrug. “The capacitors took over treble the power during Vala’s absence.”
Daniel thought about it, then grinned slowly.
“What?” Sam asked suspiciously.
“You said goat-priest,” Daniel accused.
Sam blinked and muttered a few choice swear words, then held up a clean panel. “So do you want to be useful or not?”
“Thank you,” Daniel answered fervently, almost leaping off the stool to stand by the desk.
“Everyone still giving you ‘space’?” Sam asked, faintly amused.
“Yes, and it is driving me crazy,” Daniel moved the indicated panel to Sam’s left. “They won’t even let me hit things. Inanimate things.”
“Poor thing,” Sam remarked, eyes on her task but glinting.
“You’re mean.”
“You’re rushing.”
“What?” Daniel looked at the panel in front of him as Sam took it.
“Not the panel, Daniel,” Sam rolled her eyes. “Go downstairs, into the basement, and stand there. Go out into that street and stand there. You haven’t stood still since it happened.”
“That’s because it’s driving me crazy,” Daniel repeated. “She’s out there, and she’s not back, and I don’t know why, I don’t even know if-” He broke off in frustration.
Sam met his eyes, something heavy in hers. “Then now you know how we felt.”
Daniel swallowed, smiling crookedly. “Much as I deserve it, Sam, timing’s not great.”
“Yes,” Sam admitted, nodding, “And you do deserve it. Twice over, in fact.”
“Did I ever-”
“No.” Daniel didn’t question her knowing what he’d been about to ask. “Jack did. Teal’c did. I never saw you.”
“Then this is exactly how you felt,” Daniel conceded. “And for what it’s worth – and what I can’t remember – I’m sorry, Sam.”
She looked at him and nodded. “Now get out of my lab, Dr. Jackson. You’re distracting me from saving the galaxy.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow. “Oh, but it’s ‘Jack’ now?”
“Weren’t you leaving?”
“I’m just wondering, you know, all of a sudden, what else might have happened that you never told me about.” Daniel ducked under the balled up piece of paper and grinned.
“Oh, as if you can talk about not telling,” Sam shot back after a moment.
“Not intended, and that’s not a denial,” Daniel rejoined.
Sam looked at him sceptically. “If you two ever – ever – come in some morning when Vala comes back and announce you’re married, we will kill you.”
Daniel grinned. “Not going to happen.”
“Marrying or eloping?”
“Definitely the second, maybe the first,” Daniel answered, “Can you really see Vala passing up the chance to make my eyes jump out of my skull? Because you know she would, in one of those dresses.”
Sam grinned and looked at him a little shyly. “Vala’s already been informed I’m her maid of honour – you know, just if you two ever get around to it.”
Daniel laughed, then sobered slightly. “We’ve already said most of what there is to say, and the only witness I really needed was Vala.”
“The promise Vala was talking about?” Sam asked quietly.
Daniel nodded. “Do the right thing, come home. It’s about all we can ask while we live like this.”
“What if doing the right thing means not coming home?”
Daniel looked at her, eyes bright and throat tight. Sam nodded, not needing to hear him say what she knew the answer had to be. Daniel took a breath, then put a hand on her wrist. He smiled. “I’m going to go and think for a bit.”
* * * *
“Why do we have to wait?” Vala asked impatiently.
“We’ve brought our flow of time into harmony with theirs temporarily,” Janis explained. “We’ll go when it’s their night.”
Vala sighed and curled up, pulling a cushion to her chest and wrapping her arms around it.
* * * *
He couldn’t stand it in the basement for long. It reminded him a little too exactly of every time he’d been helpless, watching someone he loved suffer. Beating his head and hands, railing against an invisible wall – it was the perfect metaphor for every occasion on which he’d had to stand by. It was somehow easier to stand on the now-bustling, dry street where she’d died.
“Sam said you’d be out here,” a voice said from behind him.
Daniel ducked his head with a smile. “Oh, so it’s ‘Sam’ now?”
Jack shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets and standing next to him. “It’s been ten years, Daniel. It’s about time.”
“True,” Daniel answered, smiling crookedly. “Ten years ago I was an archaeologist in a tent and you had better knees.”
“My knees get knocked enough without you helping,” Jack retorted, “And you were chasing a girl back then. Some things aren’t so different.”
“Vala’s not Sha’re,” Daniel remarked thoughtfully, “And I’m letting her go, not chasing her.” He grinned a little. “It’s not like I’d catch her if she didn’t want me to.”
“So she’s different,” Jack replied, “And so are you. You sure about this?” He held up his hands. “I had to ask.”
Daniel nodded. “I thought I’d never get over Sha’re, Jack. And I did. Do you know I have to pick up her photograph to remember the details, some days?”
“I have to do the same with Charlie,” Jack admitted. “It’s getting harder to remember. Some things I can’t forget for trying, but some things-” He broke off and tapped his temple. “It gets hazy sometimes.”
Closing his eyes and swallowing, Daniel felt something like the last, long-awaited ripple from a pebble that had long-ago reached the sandy floor. He opened his eyes and looked at the ground where Vala had lain, feeling something altogether sharper. But he also felt something new – or at least, newly realised. He didn’t look at Jack when he spoke. “I trust her. There was a time I didn’t, but I do.”
“Not to steal your wallet or sit on your glasses?” Jack answered, teasing out of habit but taking it as read.
He looked at Jack. “I’m not letting her go – but I am letting her go further, and trusting her to come back.” He smiled a little cautiously. “I’m trusting her not to really leave me unless she’s got a damn good reason.”
“Then you’ve got something that kid didn’t,” Jack shrugged, “And I’m still looking for.”
“Faith?”
“Something like it.”
“Do you think we wouldn’t have almost hated each other if I’d grown up quicker?”
Jack paused with an ‘oy.’ “I don’t have the answer to that, Daniel.” He took a breath, and Daniel braced himself for one heck of an analogy. He wasn’t disappointed. “It’s like the Wizard of Oz. You went looking for courage, I went looking for a heart, and all either of us got was an empty room.”
“The way I remember it, I went looking for proof and you went looking for suicide,” Daniel responded after a pause.
“I meant after that,” Jack shot back.
“Sha’re and Skaara.”
“You know what I meant,” Jack rolled his eyes. “Got to be so literal about it?”
Daniel grinned and didn’t reply, earning him a muttered, “Smart ass.”
Daniel looked at him and nodded. “Good. I don’t think I’d like it if we couldn’t talk again.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” Jack retorted. “Now where around here does lunch?”
Daniel pointed to Tipekme’s kitchen. “Just don’t piss off the host. She’s not exactly mild-mannered.”
* * * *
Vala let go of Janis’ arm, looking around the lab and listening to the sound of Sam’s retreating footsteps.
“Finally,” Janis remarked. “I thought she’d never leave.” Vala bit back a grin.
“So you’re going to show me how this works?”
“Something like that. Or rather, Ghannis will.”
Vala looked at her. “Why you? I thought he was the engineer.”
“I hid it,” Ghannis admitted. “Merlin was dying. I couldn’t save him or preserve the weapon entirely, but I could break it up within the shield generator.”
Vala frowned, thinking, then looked between the woman and the components. “Then you built the shield?”
Ghannis nodded. “I used the weapon’s components to over-complicate it. The others merely thought Merlin was incompetent.”
“Sneaky,” Vala grinned.
“Some might even call it a ‘well-executed plot’,” Janis added nonchalantly.
Ghannis rolled her eyes. “Remind me of your purpose here, Janis.”
“To provide amiable chatter and hasten the process,” came the bland reply.
“I think you should focus your efforts on the second.”
Janis smiled and set to work, using his powers to manipulate the pieces and finish what Sam had started. “She’s really very good,” Janis remarked.
“While he finishes that,” Ghannis told Vala, “I will show you how to activate it.”
Two hours later, Vala held up a hand and willed the last switch in place. She waited as the light turned a pale purple. “I’ve got it?”
“Indeed,” Ghannis affirmed.
“Do you know something? I wish I could remember this,” Vala commented. “Getting to know you two, I mean.”
Ghannis smiled slightly. “I wish that as well, but I will have been your friend even when you forget.”
Vala nodded and took a breath. “I know that we’re not really here, but there’s somewhere I have to be.”
Ghannis’ nod sent her walking briskly through the door before she paused and experimentally put her finger through the wall, yanking it back when it went through. She grinned and began to walk through the intervening rooms using the walls as shortcuts.
She heard familiar voices and closed her eyes, willing her form unable to be seen. It was a strange thing, to walk so very closely behind them, around their table – noting their cards as she went.
“I’m jus’ saying,”
“You’re just wrong,” Sam shot back across the table, looking at her cards.
As Teal’c commented, “I do not believe either view can be
reasonably defended,” Vala ducked under the table and hesitantly raised her
head through it to see the cards coming next on the deck. She went back to
behind
“The eyeball was gratuitous,” Sam stated bluntly.
“Tasteful violence in keeping with the theme!”
As they both looked to Teal’c, Vala willed the cards in the deck to change places and regretted not having super-powers in her earlier years.
“The movie in question is not worth even this level of discussion,” Teal’c explained calmly. “Cameron Mitchell, I believe it is your turn.”
Vala waited with pursed lips as he picked up the card and bit his lip, clearly trying not to swear.
Sam shrugged at him and picked up the next card, then grinned, sitting the set of seven on the table. “I win.”
“What?” Sam asked as Vala walked away, smiling.
Vala laughed and walked on, fighting the temptation to use her powers for a relatively small other evil. It was hard, and the mental image of a pink napkin sat squarely on top of Teal’c head – and the accompanying raised-eyebrow – wouldn’t quite leave.
Most thoughts vanished when she walked though the final wall. He was asleep, sprawled out on his front, arms under the pillow. Vala bent down next to the bed, a weight falling into her stomach at the realisation that he only took up half the bed by habit.
She tilted her head and leaned forward, nose less than an inch from his. She took a sharp breath when his eyes snapped open.
That wasn’t meant to happen, she thought hurriedly, while another part of her mind argued, But you knew it would, and that’s really why you came here.
“I was asleep?”
“Was being the operative word,” Vala replied numbly.
He blinked, eyes moving over her pale clothes and posture. “How many times?”
She smiled painfully and shook her head. “Just tonight.” At the small distance apart they were, and with her increased senses, Vala could hear his heart speed up. “I wish you’d stayed asleep, you know.”
“Why is that?”
And still, neither of them moved. Everything felt fragile, like a scene frozen in glass. If they moved, surely it would shatter, falling to the ground in thousands of minute pieces.
“I said I could just look,” Vala explained quietly. “I couldn’t be here and not look. But now I don’t want to go back.”
The look in his eyes as he realised she was going back almost broke her.
“Why do you have to?”
Smiling but knowing it didn’t reach her eyes, she shook her head. “I have one of those right things to do and the timing has to be right.” She blinked. “I can’t come back yet.”
“And then?”
“And then nothing on any plane will stop me.”
He nodded as she blinked and wiped a tear from under her eye. Daniel moved instinctively as it fell through the air, but it never reached his palm. He smiled bitterly and closed his fist with a sigh.
Vala swallowed, her senses picking up Ghannis’ signal from across the palace. She looked at Daniel but couldn’t get the words out.
“You have to go,” Daniel nodded, eyes on hers.
“I’m coming back,” Vala said, voice quiet.
“I believe you.”
This time it was ethereal, transcendent and all those things. It was still her absence, and therefore inherently not right, but it was temporary. He could settle back in the knowledge that the tides that left would just as inevitably come back – they just had deeper waters to stir first.
CHAPTER 25: The Deep Distance Between Two Stars
"You're
cinematic, razor sharp, a welcome arrow through the heart,
Under your skin feels
like home, electric shocks on aching bones."
- Snow Patrol
"Send me back!" Vala shouted, running into the council chambers, "Now!"
They exhanged glances. Ghannis stood and drew her to one side. "You saw the invasion?"
"No, I'm just missing a sale on
"What can you do there?" Janis asked softly, standing beside her.
Vala paused and pursed her lips, then met his eyes. "The right thing."
As the councillors muttered, Vala looked between her friends.
Janis was the first to lower his head in assent with a sigh. He looked to Ghannis with a slightly ironic smile. "Do you see it?"
Ghannis nodded. "They're all the same. This group, at any rate."
"What?" Vala asked irritably.
"I met your Elizabeth Weir - or close enough," Janis explained. "You remind me of her - ready to risk a fool's chance."
"It's better than no chance," Vala shrugged.
"While I do not understand your decision," a female councillor interjected, "I cannot forbid it."
Vala raised an eyebrow.
The woman shrugged. "We had agreed to send you back. To rescind that because the Ori have invaded the Renasri ... we cannot claim to defend free will and deny it to our own."
Vala smiled and inclined her head. "Thank you." She left with Ghannis and Janis. "Can you send me to the Renasri?"
Ghannis protested, and Vala faced her calmly. "The Ori have the planet blockaded," she argued forcefully, "I'll never get through in time to make a difference. What about my memories?"
Janis shook his head. "You'll have days. It's a physiological effect - we cannot stop it."
"I'll steer you in the right direction, should it be needed," Ghannis added. She smiled fiercely. "They've thrown out the rules. It's time we did the same."
"Then why don't you do this?" Vala asked, puzzled.
"They could attack me if they sensed me. In human form, they're much less likely to notice what you are doing," Ghannis clarified.
"The council are preparing for the attack, but it will take time," Janis put in with a frustrated expression.
"This had better be some fireworks party," Vala cautioned. "They've been preparing for weeks."
"Oh, it will be," Janis replied with a smile.
* * * *
"These are the latest?" Jack asked, taking the photos from Harriman. "How long did we get?"
"Fifteen seconds, sir," Harriman reported. "The Daedalus jumped in, dropped the satellite and left as per your orders. It sent this sub-space transmission before being destroyed."
Jack nodded, looking through the aerial scans of the Renasri capital.
"Did it pick up any of our transponders?" Jack didn't look up, not wanting to betray how much rode on the answer.
"Ten, sir."
"Life signs?"
"Thirty thousand on the planet in total," Harriman replied.
Jack paused to think. He didn't know whether to be relieved or not. Fourteen sent initially - two SGC teams and five civilian scientists. Thirteen after Vala's death. Ten transponders. They could easily be alive - and easily dead. He took a breath as the second answer sunk in, frowning. "Daniel said the Renasri have a warren of tunnels under that city of theirs, right, chief?"
Harriman nodded, "And initial census data suggested a population of hundreds of thousands, not-"
"Prep the next satellite with Asgard underground scanners," Jack nodded, walking up to the briefing room.
* * * *
Daniel looked up from his position at the well. Tipekme was late. It wasn't like the brisk kitchen-mistress. In the three weeks since the occupation, as the Ori had begun to settle on the planet, a large resistance network had slowly taken form.
"We finished the census," Tipekme reported from beside him, eyes on the well.
Daniel nodded. "You're late."
"I have my reasons. You need to come with me."
"I can't be missed at the dawn patrol," Daniel cautioned quietly, "It's after the curfew already."
"Then hurry up and get moving," Tipekme nodded.
* * * *
They entered the underground caves from the edge of the town. After what felt like an aeon of walking and turning, they emerged into a now-familiar cavern, tents in lines and what had the appearance of an underground refugee camp.
"How many?" Daniel asked before they attempted to cross the tents.
"Thousands," Tipekme said bluntly, "More than ten and less than a hundred in all the caverns, in total."
Daniel concealed a grin - badly - and took the hint. "Why am I here again? Oh, wait. Again implies you've told me before."
"You'll see," Tipekme answered, rolling her eyes.
They fought their way through the masses of people, reaching a junction of a dozen or so tunnels. Tipekme chose their destination without hesitation.
"Of course," Daniel remarked, "The thin, dark, damp and long one."
Tipekme only shook her head. Daniel frowned, thinking that normally that kind of comment would have at least earned him a harsh comeback. She stopped abruptly, putting a calloused hand against a groove in the wall. Daniel raised an eyebrow and looked down the tunnel. The thinner, darker, longer and probably damper one. "Me? Just me?"
Tipekme rolled her eyes and left, telling him, "I'll have one of the boys take your place for the dawn patrol."
Daniel watched her leave and looked at the smaller tunnel she'd left open. Running a hand through his hair, he pulled up his hood against the dirt and damp he thoroughly expected to find, thinking that it couldn't be worse than some muddy digs had been.
* * * *
Sam looked up from the table and the dough, brandishing her
rolling pin. "Don't make me beat you."
"Evil school?" She shrugged. "Well?"
"Today we learnt about genocide,"
Sam shuddered.
"I second that,"
"Did you see-"
"Daniel left his house for rendez-vous on schedule,"
Sam went to the window. "His lamp is on."
As an Ori soldier passed,
"Hallowed are the Ori!"
"Hallowed are the Ori!" Sam and
A moment later, Sam said, "
"It's so weird to hear them say that like an Irishman
shouting 'top o' the morning',"
"
"I mean, I've heard them shout it before they kill people. But hearing it like a 'hey there neighbour'? It's just downright weird."
"
"Yeah?"
"He's all the way over there now."
"Ah..." Drawing the syllable out,
"So I'm on the floor tonight?"
"You're on the floor every night," Sam retorted.
* * * *
Tipekme sat opposite Teal'c at the improvised mess in the caves.
"You have completed your errands?" Teal'c asked.
Tipekme nodded, digging into a bowl of soup. "You've seen this before? They come and assume over-lordship?"
"Indeed," Teal'c replied earnestly. "Your people are fortunate to have such spaces of refuge."
"We cannot stay here forever," Tipekme confided, sitting her spoon down with a sigh. "We are simply too many."
"How long can the supplies maintain the current population?" Teal'c enquired after a pause.
"One year," Tipekme stated bluntly. "And that is based upon an optimistic assumption - before crime, chaos and sickness as inevitable in a situation such as this occur."
"Then we must continue our efforts," Teal'c nodded.
* * * *
"We fall from grace - we fall with such grace."
- The Editors
Daniel walked along the small path and then stopped, realising there was a rough rug beneath his feet and a lamp-lit but doubtless solid wall in front of him.
"Hey."
He turned sharply, numbly, at the voice, every muscle coming to electrically charged life and tingling.
He froze in place, watching her set down the teapot slowly as his heart gathered force to break his rattling ribcage. He was surprised it didn't echo. She wore a hooded cloak similar to his - but that didn't matter. She had her hood up, standing with a grace and silence reminiscent of a half-forgotten dream. They had their hoods up - he couldn't see her face - but that didn't matter.
Once, she'd come back from a place far away but too close. He'd grabbed her, she'd acquiesced, shaking. They'd held on to the other fiercely as it felt like the universe, down to the particle level, vibrated and shimmered, dangerously fragile.
This time, they stood across a small cavern, facing each other. The distance and spaces between them might as well have been the distance between two stars. The universe, down to the particle level, shuddered to a halt and locked them in place by its very stillness.
The longest journey took two steps in the lamplight. She was
barefoot, he noticed it peripherally. Standing inches apart and frozen, Daniel
hesitated. He felt his breath catch painfully in his chest at the sight of her
hand reaching, crossing from her space and orbit, into his. Like a lost comet, he thought, But which of us is in the sky and which the
solid ground?
He took a breath, hand reaching to meet hers somewhere in the gap between and bracing against the rush of air he expected as they passed each other by. It never came. It was the lightest touch, the smallest imprint of a moth's wing that glided against the sensitive skin on the inside of his wrist, but it was there - she was there. He felt her fingers intertwine with his and saw her throat move as she swallowed. He heard her gasp and saw her eyes, so focussed on where his skin brushed hers, jerk up to meet his.
Give a little, give a little - give everything. It was the way they functioned, the way they fit; the only way the juxtsaposition of something else always mattering more, something else always winning in the difficult decisions could work. Daniel's hand made its way, taking an age to reach behind her ear to push back her hood. He felt her do the same, felt the small weight impact his upper back. He wasn't sure which of them moved first, but the end result was his arms around her, her palms splayed against his back and their bodies impacting roughly.
Everything mattered; everything was matter. They were two free-moving bodies in a universe full of them. If he were a planet, if she were a comet, her orbit ranged wildly farther than his around the same sun but intersected his. If she were a lost comet, blazing a trail across too many skies and spaces, then by give a little, give everything, she'd pull him into more distant reaches he'd feared to tread as he pulled her closer to solid ground. Somewhere in the space between two stars, they'd found their way back.
CHAPTER 26: Binaries and Oppositions
“Love’s a drowsy
nymph, when it wakes it starts to scream like some ungodly thing starts to
scream.”
- The Hot Puppies
Daniel sat up in the small cavern and slipped from the pile of rugs and mattresses that made the 'bed'.
“I thought you had to do something first.”
“I did,” Vala remarked lazily, stretching like a cat and reflecting on all the good things about having a physical body again. When a small thud announced the landing of a blanket on her back, she raised an eyebrow over her shoulder.
“You shivered,” Daniel said innocently. “Not what you had in mind?”
Daniel laughed and went back to the bed.
As she smugly curled herself around him, Daniel took the opportunity to prod her in the side. She put her elbows on his chest with a mild glare. “Was that for the smile? If it was, I find it a quite childish reaction, Daniel. And yes, I do know I have pointy elbows. We've had that discussion, but I thought I'd remind you.”
Daniel very seriously nodded, wrapped both hands around her wrists and flipped them around, surprising a laugh from Vala, who wrapped both legs around his waist as they turned. “It was actually because you haven't answered my question yet,” Daniel remarked off-handedly, cupping her cheek and kissing her, “But you had to be petty.”
“Current events-” Vala answered distractedly, “Being this little invasion-” She curled a hand around his neck, “Changed my plans somewhat.”
“So what're the current plans?”
“ Daniel,” Vala said sharply, putting a hand under his chin and forcing his eyes to meet hers. Her other hand ran delicate trails down his back, nails just on the edge of scraping his skin. “You'll find they're called plots, and you're doing things like this.” Vala rather deliberately tightened her legs around his waist. “How do you expect me to think?”
“That's a good point,” Daniel answered a little breathlessly as she put her hands on either side of his face and her lips found his neck. “I think I'll stop talking now.”
He thought he felt her smile.
* * * *
Tipekme sat at the head of the table, Teal'c, Sam and
Tipekme silently moved another chair to the right hand side.
“Daniel's late,” Sam commented worriedly.
“And that light at his house was strange,”
“Hey, guys,” Daniel ran in, looking a little flustered, “Sorry we're late.”
“We?”
“It was meant to be a surprise,” a slightly huffed voice remarked from the doorway. “He was supposed to act like nothing had happened so that I could announce myself.”
Daniel flushed slightly.
Sam looked at Tipekme and Teal'c with a conspicuously painless looking cough.
Vala turned a giggle into a cough. “My fault.” She smirked at Daniel. “Someone I wanted to see – alone – first.”
“To business,” Tipekme broke in after a moment. She looked at Vala. “We have little time before they have to be in the village.”
Vala nodded. “We're have limited time in general. The Ori attack and the ascended strike all take place five days from now.”
“The one that could destroy, oh, the universe?”
Vala nodded.
“How do you know?” Daniel asked, “I thought you'd lose those memories, you know, coming back.”
The brunette ducked her head and closed her eyes, muttering. The others jumped as Ghannis appeared at the doorway and 'sat' at the table. “The shield, as you know, is not a terribly advanced piece of technology, contrary to appearances.”
Sam nodded, listening avidly.
“Forgive me this, my friend,” Ghannis began with a nod to Vala, “But the only person capable of recognising what everyone else thought to be extraneous parts was Adria. The priors have blind ability, not knowledge. That distinction is what made Adria so dangerous.”
“What is the purpose of the device?” Teal'c asked.
Ghannis took a breath. “I am here, according to the council of which I am now a part-” she glared at Vala, then carried on - “only to guard Vala and make sure she is not helpless. They cannot watch from another plane when the Ori have so much attention focussed here.”
“Sneaky,”
Ghannis glared at him as Vala attempted not to laugh.
“So how do we take advantage of the council being blind to anything that happens here?” Sam asked.
“The official position is that as these planes are so more infinitely limited, should they be destroyed in the battle, it is merely the beginning of a new cycle of existence,” her voiced was saturated with contempt.
“And illustrates how far from themselves they've come,” Daniel put in contemplatively, “Considering they began with a respect for all life, great and small.”
“I assume that's not your position,”
“Nor was it Merlin's,” Ghannis confirmed.
Sam looked around the table. “So how does the device help?”
“You really want to know what it does, don't you?”
“As if you don't,” Sam shot back.
“Quit prompting me, woman,”
Sam pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. Very... slowly.
“I take it back,”
“It emits a wave form,” Ghannis continued after an amused glance at the colonels. “It will block our plane of existence from all others.”
“Now that sounds like a plan,”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Daniel frowned and spoke quickly. “And no more ascension. If that really is the next stage of our evolution as a species we'd be intentionally stunting our own growth. Do we really have the right to make that kind of decision for every human being, in every universe, for the rest of time?!”
“It would be in one direction only,” Ghannis replied. “Humans could ascend but -” she looked at Vala and Daniel - “They could not come back. Ascended beings, Ori or otherwise, would have no influence on this plane, and would not even be able to observe.” She flushed slightly. “As it stands, our constant trafficking back and forth has created paths along which energy can flow, putting this plane at risk in the coming battle.”
Daniel sat back.
“Forgive me,” Tipekme began respectfully, “But what does this have to do with my planet's invasion?”
“Where is the weapon?” Vala asked the table, looking to
“My lab, hidden,” Sam answered. “We knew they had gotten through the shield. We're going to cheat, I assume?” Ghannis nodded. Sam continued, “We split the parts into two groups and hid them. One in the lab, one in the basement. Also,” Sam's eyes lit up, “I think I can make your shield work like the Sentinel weapon we've encountered before.”
Ghannis blinked. “Is that possible?”
Sam grinned. “So it was your work?”
Ghannis brushed that off and the two began to discuss technical specifics.
Vala nodded. “Five days.”
“To save the universe,”
“Multiple universes,” Teal'c continued.
“And the very idea of existence in this form,” Vala finished with a grin.
“More time than we usually get,” Daniel commented after a moment.
* * * *
“So the objective is to activate the device,”
Daniel stood next to Ghannis. “Are you feeling tired?”
Ghannis nodded with a small smile. “I am trying – as Janis constantly tells me – to do too many things at once.”
“And you're okay with blocking off your plane?”
“It was our plan from the beginning, Janis and I,” Ghannis admitted, not looking at him. “Merlin and I, as well. He died a human for this – the saviour of your race and mine – and he was far more brilliant than I am. Perhaps the most brilliant yet to live a human.”
“What happened?” Daniel asked curiously.
“He chose to live a human and forget, to die of old age and in hiding rather than face the others and give up our secrets,” Ghannis explained sadly. “I do not even know his final resting place, but he did say he would like a view of the snow.” She smiled slightly, eyes distant, “It's odd what becomes important when you have all of time for contemplation.”
After a moment, she met his eyes. “The others need this as much as the humans do, Daniel. We will never put our existence into the proper context if we continue to interfere. We will never truly be ascended if we continue to ground our concepts of self, of who we are, in opposition to all that you are and we were.”
“Like being on a train,” Daniel nodded, “you're carried forward while you're looking back.”
Ghannis smiled. “And we created your race. As tempting as it is to assume the roles of creator and caretaker, your generation has proved that it no longer needs such constructs. The Ori are our mistake, and we must correct it before we leave.”
* * * *
Vala and Teal'c made their way through the woods. Reaching the clearing, they found three members of the SGC and three civilian scientists.
After greeting Reynolds and his men, she looked at him. “Where are Fields and Dr. Munro?”
Their expressions darkened. “Dead,” Reynolds replied. “There's been some horrible things here, Vala. Summary executions, people being dragged into custody and never seen again.”
“They got Fields in the invasion,” a sergeant added. “Dave went missing a week ago. They're not the only ones.”
Vala swallowed, fighting back her own anger. Fields had been her guard, dragged into dishing out soup, before her death. Dave Munro had been an anthropologist with a slightly nervous disposition, but Vala had softened to him after seeing him tease a shy child out of a corner with funny sketches of Tipekme chasing a cook with a spoon. Taking a deep breath, she sat and outlined the plan.
* * * *
Two Ori guards walked on through the village and saw Sam,
“Hallowed are the Ori!” the guard yelled.
They replied as expected.
“Stop!”
Daniel mimed falling and taking Sam's arm. The guards looked at each other.
“It's not a staff,” Sam interjected a note of distress into her voice. “He's blind – he needs it to walk! And if you want to kill him, just send him to war!”
The guards reluctantly returned the staff, Sam leading
Daniel to his residence as
“Nicely played,” Daniel muttered.
“And you – be careful,” Sam replied, grabbing his wrist tightly before leaving.
Sam took a deep breath as the guards left. “Do you think they bought it?”
“I hope so,”
* * * *
“Sam.”
“I tol' you,
“Sam, wake up.”
Something in his tone brought her to immediate, full wakefulness.
“What's wrong?”
“Look across the street, but for Christ's sake stay down.”
* * * *
“I told them, the ones here before, I'm blind!”
“Come along, don't wake the street.”
“It's just a few questions – if you're really blind, you have nothing to worry about.”
* * * *
“What can we do?”
“Wait – tell the others at first light.”
“Well, that's going to be fun.”
* * * *
Vala stared at
“Where would they have taken him?”
“Vala-”
“Where.”
“The palace. Turns out it has a prison level.”
Vala swore. “We're only going to get one shot in the palace,” she said bitterly, closing her eyes and leaning back. “You know what he would say.”
What if the right thing means not coming home?
CHAPTER 27: The Right Thing
“I'll sing it one last
time for you,
And then we really have to go,
You've been the only thing that's right in all I've done.
I can barely look at you, but every single time I do,
I know we'll make it anywhere away from here.
Light up, light up – as if you have a choice,
As if you have a choice, even when you cannot hear my voice.
Louder, louder, and we'll run for our lives.”
- Snow Patrol
Daniel looked up from his position in the corner of the cell as the door opened. He looked from side to side, keeping his eyes carefully blank.
“Dr. Jackson, am I to truly believe you have been blinded since we last met? And that you chose this planet, simply by chance, as your place of anonymous hermitage?”
Daniel met the prior's eyes, recognising him as the former
village administrator, responsible for Vala's first death. “I am short-sighted.
He found himself pinned to the wall.
The prior took a few steps forward. “You will tell me all that I want to know. And when your friends – especially the murderer of the Orici – come for you, so will they.” He let Daniel fall to the floor and tilted his head with unblinking eyes. “And then both they and you will die.”
“Heard that one,” Daniel tilted his own head, “Actually, think I've done that one before. Next threat please.”
The staff glowed.
* * * *
Vala nodded to Ghannis. The ascended being frowned slightly and a small sun flared above the town before blinking from existence.
From their position in an alley in the town, they heard the distant roars begin.
Vala met
Vala had heard of a phenomenon known as the Northern Lights. Strips of green and purple flooded the sky, other colours bleeding in and out in a parody of daylight channelled through a lens.
Ghannis looked at Vala. “We must hurry.”
* * * *
Jack had argued. And then argued. What did he know about space battles? He'd just get in the way. Or so he lied.
“I'm more used to being the one who causes the worry, Hank.”
And for once, he'd won.
He gave the signal, and in a flash of light, the Odyssey turned into the green of the Renasri forest.
* * * *
Tipekme watched from her rooftop vantage point as her people took on the Ori foot soldiers with Earth weapons, tens of thousands flooding the streets as the sky exploded overhead and overwhelming the barricades. Knowing invasion had been distantly possible and in exchange for shield technology, the Renasri had stockpiled advanced weaponry in the tunnels. Now they were putting it to use. The Renasri fighters were far from expert with the weapons, but given the hordes of Ori soldiers, they didn't have to be.
She used the unfamiliar binoculars to scan the other rooftops and find the six Earth fighters.
*
* * *
Janis felt the room around him shudder and fought to keep his mental grip on his line of sight. Relinquishing the semblance of their former existence, he felt the presences around him, a cluster of shapeless lines and formless masses, both impossibly large and narrow, squeezed onto a cross-section of existence in a world stripped bare of points of reference. They were engaged in a bizarre, drifting, pulsating push and pull that bore no relation to the warfare they'd engaged in with the Wraith beyond the desire for the extinction of the Other. Janis sent a direct line of energy and felt the fibres of his surroundings shudder, then reform, as his opponent shattered from existence.
* * * *
Daniel took deep breaths as the pain subsided, then laughed. “Not to spoil this moment we're having, but I'm not going to tell you anything and no-one's coming for me. Just thought you should know.”
The prior smiled slowly. “I do not believe that, even if I can believe that you do.”
“Really? That's a shame,” Daniel gasped out, “Because it's actually true. Unlike everything else I've told you.”
The prior frowned.
Daniel nodded. “Elvis Presley? Not exactly a man of power back home. Left the building a long time ago. Some think he ascended, but that would make him not your problem.”
The prior pointed the staff at him again. “You might consider telling me the truth.”
“I'm sorry,” Daniel replied contritely, “Please don't, you know, take it personally. Happens to everyone with me. It's just torture. It makes me sarcastic.”
* * * *
They emerged from the underground tunnels and into the
palace. They split,
“Sam?!”
“Done!” Sam replied, “These levels should be sealed off. You two get to work on the wave-generator, I'll convert the shield.”
“Tell me you know what you're doing,”
“Sam told me exactly what to do,” Vala replied distractedly.
“It's just -”
“Cameron, I need your help,” Vala interjected.
“What?”
“Go over to the door panel.”
“Now what?”
“Stay there and be quiet while I do this.”
There was a pause.
“That was mean. Sorry.”
“Well, yeah.”
“At least I didn't tell you to shut the hell up.”
“Thanks.”
* * * *
“Now what?” Sam asked.
“Third row, down switch. Rewire the red into the top corner,” Ghannis replied, using her powers to work on another panel.
“We're almost ready to go,” Sam reported through the radio
to
* * *
*
“Reynolds, how're the children of the revolution?”
“Oblivious to pop culture references but otherwise doing well,” he replied, “We've pushed them back as far as the palace walls.”
“What about the reinforcements?”
Reynolds sighted, paused and yanked his rifle up so as not to fire. “Mitchell, you're not going to believe who just crashed the party.”
* * * *
“Odyssey, this is Mitchell. What the hell took you so long?”
Colonel Emerson grinned and signalled the weapons officer to fire at will.
“We'll keep those boots off the ground, you keep us in the sky, Colonel?”
“Sounds about right to me. Mitchell out.”
* * * *
Jack led the marine squad through the trees to the capital. Using the signals contained in the message beacon, fired just before the invasion had succeeded, he received a rendezvous signal from a nearby roof. Climbing the stairs, he met Tipekme in the attic.
“We brought in your beacon.”
She nodded. “Your team is in the palace.”
“Where do you need us?”
“More rooftop shooters,” she answered bluntly. Jack split his force in half, sending half to the rooftops and looked at Tipekme. “What's the fastest way to that palace?”
* * * *
Janis allowed himself to fade back away from the main fight. He could sense the effects beginning to seep through to the other planes and hoped Ghannis and the others could-
With a vehement string of mental curses he knew what Ghannis was planning. Or what she would allow to happen. He left the battle at a dizzying speed, throwing himself down a line to the lower plane.
* * * *
Daniel coughed, feeling something in his throat burn, and his body begin to shake. He looked at the prior. “Don't believe me? They're not coming for me. I have nothing to do with this.” He grinned fiercely. “Doesn't mean I don't want them to win.”
“You had best pray to the Ori for forgiveness,” the prior warned. “You cannot survive much more.”
Daniel gestured to the multicoloured sky beyond the bars. “I think they're a bit busy. Could you take a message?”
* * * *
“Sam, we're ready to go here!”
“We're done here!”
Sam looked at Ghannis. “Last chance to think this is a bad idea,” she said warningly.
Ghannis shook her head, her mouth a thin line.
“Wait!”
The shout came from nowhere, but Ghannis muttered a harsh word.
Janis, gasping for breath and pale, blinked into existence. Putting both hands on Ghannis' arms, he looked at her. “This is your choice? You were never here for Vala, were you?” Shaking slightly, he met her eyes, “It's an awfully drastic measure to avoid council meetings, you know.”
Ghannis smiled and nodded, lifting her head. “This is my choice. What's yours?”
“Guys-” Sam began, thinking that the universe still needed saving.
“Do it,” Janis answered, eyes on Ghannis'. He looked at her. “Engineering's not very fun when you have no hands, anyway.”
Ghannis merely smiled and put her head on his shoulder.
“Vala? Initialise on my mark!”
* * * *
“Three.”
Vala looked at
“Two.”
“Ready to irrevocably change existence?”
“One.”
Vala put her hand on the switch.
“Mark.”
She turned it.
* * * *
A blast of white light erupted and moved from the device in the basement, a second from the lab.
Reynold's bullet left his gun.
The Ori ship executed a turn and aimed at the Odyssey.
The lights in the sky dimmed to their normal star-peppered black as Reynold's bullet passed through thin air to hit a stone wall.
“Still flying,” came the reply.
“It didn't take out the priors,”
She blinked languidly, then looked at him. “We did it. It worked. I'm cut off from – there.” She gestured at the ceiling then clicked her radio.
“Sam?”
“Ghannis and Janis are fine, if feeling a bit awkward with just dust sheets,” Sam reported.
Vala looked at
* * * *
“Sam!”
“Go ahead?”
“Vala's going after Daniel, I'm guarding the weapon. Don't know who from, but someone should.”
“We're activated and guarding the shield.”
“Reynolds?” Sam and
* * * *
Vala ran along the corridors as quickly as she dared. The footsoldiers were all gone, neutralised by the modified shield. The Ori were gone, the Ancients on their own. But the existing priors were still a danger – and they still had Daniel. Hearing footsteps, Vala brought her gun up and faced Jack.
He looked at her and lowered his gun, taking in the rough-hewn linen clothing and SGC vest.
“Daniel?” he asked, shrugging off her resurrection.
“Being tortured by priors,” Vala answered, beginning to run again.
“Well that was a safe bet,” Jack muttered, signalling the marines to a run.
* * * *
The energy wave passed over the prior and Daniel. He looked at the grey-shaped man. “Well, that's not fair. The Dakarra weapon killed you.”
The prior only smiled and levelled the staff at him again, and Daniel felt his throat constrict as he slammed into the wall. Struggling to breath, his vision began to blur.
“That was an inferior contruction.”
He dimly heard the door slam and a distant but familiar voice as his vision cleared. Well, as clear as it ever was.
The prior took his attention from Daniel to Vala, standing in the doorway. As before, several rounds clicked but didn't connect or injure the prior.
Vala saw his hand turn to snap Daniel's neck in slow motion, dropping her own gun and raising her hand. Something gold in colour, glittering in texture and painful for the prior but otherwise beyond her knowledge shot from her hand and slammed into the cloaked man. It bounced and the two locked in a stalemate. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the prior take aim – but not at her. It was the last straw and extra push. At the very moment he launched a second offensive, she slammed him into the wall and heard his neck snap and his skull crunch against the stone, almost off-handedly. Her attention immediately shifted to deflecting the sharp piece of rock intended for somewhere in Daniel's torso. It slammed into the wall and Vala sank to the ground.
Jack caught her below the elbow and sat her next to Daniel against the wall. She met his eyes tiredly and laughed. He laughed and winced, examining the wound at his side.
Vala lifted his t-shirt and frowned. “Sorry. I couldn't push it far enough – it was going too fast.”
“Don't worry about it,” Daniel replied. “Better my side than my skull. Just a flesh wound, really.”
“So I guess I saved your life,” Vala commented a moment later, after glaring at him.
Daniel grinned. “I guess you did.”
“You should think of something really interesting,” Vala warned.
“Why- ow!”
Daniel took a deep breath as Vala held up the blood-covered shard that had been lodged in his side.
“How'd we do?” Daniel asked, looking between Jack and Vala as they heard the marines and Reynolds opening other cells in the distance.
“Ori blocked out,” Vala reported as a first aid officer began to clean out the wound. “Ghannis and Janis decided to stick around, I think. Oh, and we kicked the Ori out of Renasri.”
“Odyssey?”
Vala frowned and looked to Jack.
Jack clicked off his radio and came back over. “Battered to within an inch but they made it. Won't fly again for a while, but they're mostly in one piece.”
Daniel leaned back as Jack sat down at the opposite side of the cell. He took Vala's hand in his and felt her head on his shoulder.
“So this isn't what we call a bad day?” Vala said quietly.
“I don't think it is,” Daniel murmurred back.
“Definitely,” Jack added.
CHAPTER 28: Earth Is Not a Cold,
In the aftermath, Vala, Daniel, Sam,
“Aid coming through from the SGC now,” Jack reported.
“How did Earth take the news about the Stargate?” Daniel asked quietly.
“Oh, they're pissed,” was Jack's response. “But we'll manage. Had to happen eventually. And it's not like they could explain a massive flash in the sky off as an exploding light bulb factory or anything this time. For once the IOA are earning their over-inflated pay cheques.”
“You mean Woolsey is serving a purpose that isn't comedy?”
“I wouldn't go that far,” Jack replied.
As the conversation flowed around them, Vala prodded Daniel in the side.
“Ow.”
“Oh, I know it was your other side.”
“I still spent most of yesterday being tortured.”
“Going to dine out on that for a while?”
“You have no idea.”
They shared a grin.
“So I was wondering,” Vala asked, “What you thought about when I was pulling that shard out of your side.”
“Tax returns. Pension forms.”
Vala looked at him. “You heard me say 'interesting', right, darling? Or did that bad man hit you on the head when I wasn't looking?”
Daniel grinned and ducked his head. “Well, you know you'll be doing them this year.”
“Yes,” Vala replied cheerfully, “And I'm considering another slow and painful death as a pleasant alternative.”
“And they're complicated enough,” Daniel continued innocently, “Without you being an alien and all.”
“Daniel, is there a rational reason why we're talking about this, or have you not been tortured enough lately?”
“Well, there is a way to make it an awful lot easier, you know.”
Vala grinned, suddenly seeing where he was going. She looked at him. “That would simplify it a great deal, wouldn't it?” She nodded.
“Guys,” Daniel said, raising his voice. The table fell silently. “Vala and I have been talking about it, and we think our lives would be a lot easier if we got married.”
They stared.
Vala grinned and nodded. “It's the sensible thing to do, really. Paperwork, green cards, bank accounts. And if either of us dies again, you won't even have to sell anything.”
“I think so,” Sam replied dubiously. “Did we leave a spare medic lying around anywhere near here?”
“Oh,” Daniel added suddenly, “And we love each other and want to spend our lives together.”
“But we were going to do that anyway,” Vala pointed out.
“Well, yes, but I didn't think we should say it like we're only getting married for tax forms.”
“Good point,” Vala replied seriously, nodding.
Slowly, the others started to grin.
Eight Months Later
Daniel stood at the small podium, looking out at the faces of the recruits. They fell silent slowly and laughed as he said 'hello' in over a dozen different languages.
He grinned and paused, taking a breath and sobering. “You're all here because you're the best at what you happen to do. And as many hellos as I just said, there's as many nationalities in this room right now. I'm here to tell you a little about what you're letting yourselves in for.”
He looked around the room, feeling suddenly quite old. “You're going to be working with people you'd never meet otherwise. Regardless of how different you seem, stick with it. Give people a chance. Believe me when I say that you need all the friends you can have in this life. And it might be those very differences that bind you in the end.”
Daniel activated the light board behind him, flipping the lip on his laptop and feeling like the lecturer he once was, slides and all. “You all know the history, the general races and faces – the big circle downstairs.” He looked at them. “But you were recruited before the past few months, and a few things have changed since then. For one, you're no longer being brought into a secret organisation. Among other things, this means my books and papers are in the history section of Waterstones.”
They laughed and listened as he outlined the situation, summing up with, “There are priors out there, and there's still an army to be dealt with. However, there won't be any more priors. This generation is the last. And we now have the power to shield planets who don't want to follow Origin. It'll be the work of generations to finish this,” Daniel added, “and that'll begin with yours. I can't tell you how to live with doing this and people knowing about it – that's something we'll all be learning with you. The things you'll see, the things you'll do – it is worth it.” He saw a few faces join the class, standing at the back, and grinned as he met grey eyes. “The only other thing I can tell you? Do what's right, and try to come home.”
As the class broke up, the group made their way to the front. “Any questions?” Daniel asked, smiling.
Vala raised a hand. “Two, darling. Have you finished packing yet, and will you be out of the office in time for us to get to the cabin before dark?”
He laughed and nodded, “Yes to both,” before slipping a hand into hers. “How was the mission?”
“Oh, fine,” Vala replied. “Ghannis and Janis are settled in with the Renasri. Tipekme says to eat healthily, everyone says hello.”
“You're really giving up SG-1?”
“Yes,” Daniel nodded, “And no, not really. You know I have as many missions as you do, and about half of them with you. I just go with lots of teams – and I get to see a dig all the way through, not just say, “That's interesting,” and watch someone else take over for the good parts.”
“Sam?” Daniel asked Vala.
“Flying direct from Area 51,” she reported, “Jack from Washington, Ghannis and Janis are through – cars leave at five-fifteen, with or without you,” she sent him a mild glare.
“How're you going to get married without the groom?” Daniel asked. Vala paused and smiled sheepishly.
“You're marrying a geek,”
“Cameron Mitchell, I believe it is in your best interests to be silent,” Teal'c commented.
“Thanks, Muscles,” Vala grinned. “And yes, I do know. But when geeks look that good, who cares? Now, have either of you packed yet? It's three now, you know.”
They looked at each other and then Vala, who made shooing motions.
Daniel smiled, watching her chastise them as he gathered his papers and packed away his laptop. The best thing about Vala, he thought, was her mix of cynicism and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm – with the combination of Vala, the end of the main war and his new freedom to pursue academia again (not to mention his name being cleared in academia) – was something to be discovered all over again.
Vala waited as he packed up, then took a bundle of papers despite his protests. “Ah,” she said slowly, “But if I put these in my left hand, I can do this.” She slipped her right hand into his.
“I knew you were a smart one,” Daniel replied with a grin. “You still don't mind getting married at the cabin?” he asked, “I'm rich, now, you know. Books flying off the shelves-”
Vala laughed, “Get big headed and I'll refuse to have children,” she threatened.
Daniel ducked his head and looked at her. “You're honestly okay with it?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Beautiful scenery, secluded, all of our closest friends. However will I cope? Oh, and you. What's a girl to do with all that misery?” She sobered and smiled. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”
“Good,” Daniel said with a grin as they walked into his office. “And I know, we're leaving at five.”
She hopped up onto the desk. “I'll stick around in case you forget. Besides, you haven't seen my dress.” As Daniel's eyes lit up and he opened his mouth, Vala grinned wickedly. “And you won't until tomorrow because Sam has it.”
Daniel rolled his eyes and felt a swipe on his arm. He threw her a book. “Finished it last night. You'll like it.”
A few minutes later, he knew he'd hooked her. Her mouth was slightly open and both her elbows were on the desk.
“We're leaving at five,” Daniel said lightly. “Just reminding you. You know, in case you forget.”
“Lovely, darling. Now, shouldn't you be working?”
He grinned and lifted his translation. This temple could take months, he thought with relish, then looked at his watch and Vala, but I think I'll commute.
** The End
**
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